Meerabai

Meera was a Rathore princess of Merta, granddaughter of Rao Duda, and the account told in every bhakta-charitra begins in her childhood: given a small murti of Krishna, she took Giridhar Gopal as her husband and never changed her mind. She was married into the royal house of Mewar, to Bhojraj, son of Rana Sanga, and was widowed young. She would not commit sati and would not give up singing and dancing before Krishna in the company of sadhus, and her padas speak of the anger of the court: the cup of poison sent by the Rana that she drank laughing, the snake in a basket that became a garland. Tradition links her with Sant Raidas as guru. She left Chittor for Vrindavan, where a well-known katha has her meeting Jiva Goswami, and finally went to Dwarka. There, the account goes, when messengers came to take her back to Mewar, she entered the temple of Ranchhodji and was not seen again; she had merged into her Lord. Her padas were carried by singers rather than written down, so hundreds survive in Rajasthani, Braj and Gujarati with many variants. Their voice is direct and personal: a woman in love who will not be shamed, who weighs Govind on the scales and buys him in the open market.