Мирабай: 16 ғасырлық Кришнаға адал ақыны және әулиесі

16th century Hindu mystic poet, saint and devotee of the god Krishna
the Indian weightlifter

Meera, better known as Mirabai, and venerated as Sant Meerabai, was a 16th century Hindu mystic poet and devotee of Krishna. She is a celebrated Bhakti saint, particularly in the North Indian Hindu tradition. She is mentioned in Bhaktamal, confirming that she was widely known and a cherished figure in the Bhakti movement by about 1600. Most legends about Mirabai mention her fearless disregard for social and family conventions, her devotion to Krishna, her treatment of Krishna as her husband, and her persecution by her in laws for her religious devotion. Millions of devotional hymns in passionate praise of Krishna are attributed to Meerabai in the Indian tradition, but just a few hundred are believed to be authentic by scholars, and the earliest written records suggest that except for two hymns, most were first written down in the 18th century. Many poems attributed to Meera were likely composed later by others who admired Meera. These hymns are a type of bhajan, and are very famous across India. Some Hindu temples, such as Chittor Fort, are dedicated to Mirabai's memory.

Primary records about Meera are not available, and scholars have attempted to establish Meera's biography from secondary literature that mentions her. Mirabai was born into a Rathore Rajput royal family in Kudki (modern day Beawar district of Rajasthan), and spent her childhood in Merta. She was the daughter of Ratan Singh and grand daughter of Rao Dudaji of Merta. Meera unwillingly married Bhoj Raj, the crown prince of Mewar, in 1516. Her husband was wounded in one of the ongoing wars with the Delhi Sultanate in 1518, and he died from battle wounds in 1521. Both her father and father in law (Rana Sanga) died a few days after their defeat in the Battle of Khanwa against Babur, the first Mughal Emperor. Yet another legend states that the third Mughal emperor, Akbar, came with Tansen to visit Meera and presented her with a pearl necklace. Scholars doubt this happened, as Tansen joined Akbar's court in 1562, 15 years after Meera's death. are all from the 17th century and written within 150 years of Meera's death. Neither mentions anything about her childhood, the circumstances of her marriage to Bhojraj or that the people who persecuted her were her in laws or from some Rajput royal family. Nancy Martin Kershaw states that to the extent that Meera was challenged and persecuted, religious or social conventions were unlikely to have been the cause, rather the likely cause was political chaos and military conflicts between the Rajput kingdom and the Mughal Empire. Other stories state that Mira Bai left the kingdom of Mewar and went on pilgrimages. In her last years, Meera lived in Dwarka or Vrindavan, where legends state she miraculously disappeared by merging into an idol of Krishna in 1547.

When the Adi Granth was compiled in 1604, a copy of the text was given to a Sikh named Bhai Banno who was instructed by Guru Arjan to travel to Lahore to get it bound. While doing so, he made a copy of the codex, which included compositions of Mirabai. These unauthorized additions were not included in the standardized edition of the scripture by the Sikh gurus, who rejected their inclusion. Prem Ambodh Pothi, a text attributed to Guru Gobind Singh and completed in 1693 CE, includes poetry of Mira Bai as one of sixteen historic bhakti saints important to Sikhism.

English translations of Meera's poems titled Mystic Songs of Meera and The Devotional Poems of Mirabai have been written by A. J. Alston and V. K. Subramanian respectively. Some bhajans of Meera have been rendered into English by Robert Bly and Jane Hirshfield as Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems. Schelling and Landes Levi have offered anthologies in the USA. Snell has presented parallel translations in his collection The Hindi Classical Tradition. Sethi has selected poems which Mira composed presumably after she came in contact with Ravidas.

Composer John Harbison adapted Bly's translations for his Mirabai Songs. The 1997 novel Cuckold, by Kiran Nagarkar, features her as one of the central characters. In 2002, Indian film director Anjali Panjabi released a documentary film about Meera, titled A Few Things I Know About Her. In 2009, Meera Bai's life was interpreted as a musical story in Meera—The Lover , a music album based on original compositions for some well known bhajans attributed to her. James, a Bangladeshi musician, dedicated his song "Mirabai" to her. The Meera Mahal in Merta is a museum dedicated to telling the story of Mirabai through sculptures, paintings, displays, and a shaded garden.