In India, the exalted woman mystic, Mirabai, is one of the finest examples in history of this all-consuming love for God. The very utterance of the name of Mirabai fills the Hindu mind with inspirational devotion.
In Mira India saw the Gopi's devotion to Lord Sri Krishna resurrected and revivified in the great spiritual tradition.
Though Mira's songs are sung everywhere in India by millions of people, in temples and monasteries, wayside inns and even in movies, we don't yet have a universally accepted version of her life. Research is going on. Here we shall follow a version which appears to be more acceptable than others for various reasons.
Mira was born as the daughter of Ratan Singh in 1503, at Kudki village in a royal Kshatriya family of Rajasthan, a desert area of the central-western India.
Many of the heroic sagas of Indian history flow out of the lives of these sturdy people, the Rajputs, who lived in Rajasthan.
In this material race of the desert region, a new type of blossom was Mira, heroic, not on the battle-front, but heroic in devotion, in self-abandonment at the feet of the Lord.
When Mira was but three, she seized upon the idol of her life from whom no power on earth could separate her. One day, a venerable monk came to her father's home and stayed overnight as guest.
The monk carried an image of Giridhara(a name of Sri Krishna when lifted a mountain named Giriraj to tame God of Heaven, Indra. Hence, Lord Sri Krishna was hail as Giri-dhara(Holder of Giriraj mountain)) for his daily worship.
During his stay at Ratan Singh's house, while he was worshipping the Deity of Lord Sri Krishna, little Mira felt irresistibly attracted to the idol, and wanted to make it her own.
But the monk was not at all ready to part with the image of his chosen ideal which he had so long worshipped.
Little Mira threatened to fast; the power of the aggression of this small girl's love was felt. The monk, however, was ready to give away anything he had, but not the idol of his heart.
In this duel of love, Mira became victorious, for the Lord himself indicated in a dream to the monk His preference for Mira. And the monk bent sadly over the image, and with trembling hands, gave it to Mira, wiped his eyes and wended his way in the vastness of the world musing on the strange ways of the Lord.
Readers of Sri Ramkrishna's life will remember how in a very similar way Jatadhari, a Vaishnava monk, who had come to stay for a few days at Dakshineshwar, had to leave behind the idol of his life, Ramlala(One form among the Lord Sri Krishna 's ten incarnations) , because the Deity had expressed a preference for Sri Ramakrishna.
The mysterious telepathy that transpires between the Lord and His chosen devotees is not comprehensible to us. But let us not depend too much on our little discursive intellect and reject such phenomena disrespectfully only because we do not understand them. Most mystic experiences happen beyond the bounds of reason.
We can imagine how great was Mira's joy at the triumph of her fancy. But we cannot easily imagine that this image of Giridhara could became the centre of all her agony and sole joy of her life.
Children are clever creatures. They know very well how to extract toys from the unwilling hands of parents by just pouting their lips and shedding a few tears. Mira was more aggressive and assertive, and what she got, she did not throw away as other children usually do with toys when their interest wanes.
One day, after this incident, when a marraige procession was passing by their home, little Mira asked her mother most anxiously, "Mother, where is my 'dulha'?" The bridegroom is called 'dulha'. The word also means the beloved.
"The Giridhara Gopal is your dulha," said her mother pointing to the image and smiling at the innocence of the child.
But her mother perhaps also remembered what little Mira had told her of a dream in which she was married to the Lord of the Universe as in her divine song she sang glories of her marriage with the Lord.
However, the seriousness with which the child had taken her mother's words was revealed, to the bewilderment of many, as she grew up. The language of her heart was recorded in her song later on:
"I have none else for my husband, But Giridhara Gopala,
On whose head shines the crown, Of peacock feathers;
He is my husband."
(Mere toh Giridhara Gopala dusro na koi, Jake sir mor mukut mere pati hoi)"
When she was about eight, Mira's mother died and she came to live with her grandfather, Dudaji, who was a devout Vaishnava, a worshipper of the Supreme Lord in the form of Vishnu.
At the grandfather's knee Mira listened with rapt attention to the spiritual lore of the land like the Mahabharata.
As far as she was concerned, Mira knew she was already married to the Giridhara Gopal. But nobody else took the marraige seriously.
In 1516, when she was about thirteen, her father gave her in marraige to the Prince Bhojraj, the son of Maharana Sanga, King of Mewar.
Coming to live in her husband's home, Mira disappointed almost everybody. When, according to the family tradition, she was taken to the family shrine, where the Divine Mother was worshipped, Mira declared that she did not offer obeisance to anyone but Giridhara.
This startling defiance could not be understood by her new relatives.
Was Mira insane, or a bigot?
To the family she appeared irreverent and arrogant.
The mind of the mystic of Mira's type does not function in an ordinary way. She was passing through a stage when to her the real and spiritual marraige with Giridhara was superseded by a somewhat unnecessary and unreal marraige with a prince, for whom she had little need or love.
She was already committed to one husband, her God and her all, who was Giridhara Gopal. At this moment of high tension, she found the necessity of making obeisance to another deity like a denial of her loyalty.
How could she, whose heart was given away to one, have any worship to offer to another? Or what was the point of offering obeisance when the devotion was for someone else? Would it not be hypocrisy?
Another reason for the disappointment of the family was the Mira did not bring with her any of the usual worldly yearnings of a young bride.
In Rajput families, which were specially devoted to the cultivation of rajas, young women were not expected to be ascetics, but object of pleasure, physical and mental. But Mira was totally of a different type.
After marraige, her devotion to Giridhara increased and most of her time was spent in prayer and songs before the Lord. And she invited monks and holy men and had religious discourses with them. None of her ways were liked by the family.
Mira was ordered to abandon her ways and follow the conventions of the royal household, but she could not easily conform. The spiritual yearing in her heart was so keen that it was difficult for her to tread the ordinary household path.
So, discipline was imposed on her. Mira, however, reacted in her own way, and she sang in song:
"All the dear ones of this household are creating trouble over my association with holy men and are causing great hindrance to my worship. From childhood Mira made Giridhara Nagara her friend and beloved; this attachment shall never be broken but shall flourish."