MEERA BAI

Meera, a Rajput princess[1] was born in Kudki (Kurki), a little village near Merta, which is presently in the Nagaur district of Rajasthan in northwest India. Her father, Ratan Singh Rathore, was a warrior of the Rathore clan, the son of Rao Jodha of Mandore (1416-1489 CE), founder of the city of Jodhpur in 1459.

As an infant Meera became deeply enamoured of an iconic doll of Krishna owned by a visiting holy man she was inconsolable until she possessed it and probably kept it all her life. Her mother was supportive of her religious tendencies but she died early.

Meera’s marriage was arranged at an early age, traditionally to Prince Bhoj Raj, the eldest son of Rana Sanga of Chittor. However her new family did not approve of her piety and devotion when she refused to worship their family deity and maintained that she was only truly married to Krishna.

The Rajputana had remained fiercely independent of the Delhi Sultanate, the Islamic regime that otherwise ruled Hindustan after the conquests of Timur. But in the early 16th century CE the central Asian warlord Babur laid claim to the Sultanate and some Rajputs supported him while others ended their lives in battle with him. Her husband's death in battle (in 1527 CE?) was only one of a series of losses Meera experienced in her twenties, including the death of her mother. She appears to have despaired of loving anything temporal and turned to the eternal, transforming her grief into a passionate spiritual devotion that inspired in her countless songs drenched with eroticism and separation.[2]

Meera's devotion to Krishna was at first a private thing but at some moment it overflowed into an ecstasy that led her to dance in the streets of the city. Her brother-in-law, the new ruler of Chittorgarh, was Vikramaaditya, an ill-natured youth who strongly objected to Meera's fame, her mixing with commoners and carelessness of feminine modesty. There were several attempts to poison her.[3] Her sister-in-law Udabai is said to have spread defamatory gossip.