Mirabai and Akbar:
Bhakti and Syncretism
in Medieval India
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| Radha and Krishna and the Gopis of Vrindaban--Rajasthan Miniature Painting |
Medieval India saw a number of traveling poets and saints who inspired what has become known as the “bhakti movement.” They espoused a kind of personal religion—devotion to God—that stood above the rules and regulations of mundane religion. Where varnashram-dharma offers a safe set of moral and ethical codes for daily living, bhakti was a fresh alternative: a personal devotion to God. In this sense also, the so-called bhakti movement mirrors evangelical Christianity by promoting a personal relationship with God.
The idea that one may have a personal connection with divinity overthrows the caste system, since it does away with the hierarchy of social classes.
Of all the saints and bhaktas whose songs illuminated the popular idea of bhakti, none is so famous as Mirabai. The oral tradition of Northern India has kept her memory alive by created a wide body of work attributed to her. Her story is as compelling as a Disney movie—she is the perfect heroine—and her hero’s journey culminates in divine love.
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| Painting of Mirabai in Rajasthan Style |
Her story is told in the 17th Century Bhakta-mala of Narayana Das, a book which describes the biographies of many of the saints of Northern India.
Mirabai (1498-1548?) was a Rajput princess from Pali in Rajasthan who showed great devotion to the worship of the deity of Krishna even in childhood. Historical records from the court of Mewar show that Mirabai was later married to the Rajput King Bhoj Raj, the crown prince of Mewar. And yet, even while married, Mirabai always considered herself to be the bride of Krishna. In fact, Before her own wedding, Mirabai took vows of marriage to Krishna before a tiny deity of Krishna that she kept on her person, swearing to be faithful to Krishna only.
Mirabai’s ostensive husband, Bhoj Raj was wounded in a battle in the war of the Rajputs against the Delhi Sultanate who ruled Northern India until they were defeated by Babur. Bhoj Raj died in 1521. Mira’s own father as well as her husband’s father were also killed in wars against the Mughal army of Babur, who replaced the Delhi Sultanate as India’s ruling power. So it was that Mirabai became both widow and an orphan. But as the widow of the former king, she was recognized as a rival to the throne of Mewar. So it was that the envious family of her husband tried to murder her. Legend has it that Mirabai’s mother-in-law had her poisoned by sending her a glass of nectar. Miraculously she survived the poisoning attempt. Later she was given a basket of flowers that hid nest of asps. But Mirabai survived these attempts at murder by poison. She rejected the company of men, accepting only Krishna Himself as her lover and husband and leaving aside ordinary men as so many poisonous snakes.
Her poetry or song describes how she left the royal caste and abandoned the status of a married princess, and how she defied religious convention to become Krishna’s bride.
According to the legends surrounding Mirabai, the Emperor Akbar himself traveled on pilgrimage to listen to her song. The emperor of the Mughals along with his court musician Tansen visited her disguised as a common hermit. Akbar, the story goes, falls at her feet and offers her a necklace of pearls to complement the pearls which are her divine words in song. Since Mirabai is said to have died in 1547, this story is considered apocryphal, since Tansen wasn’t present in the court of Akbar until 1562.
But so much of the story around Mirabai is apocryphal, since events from the 16th Century are difficult to document completely. Another legend has it that she visited Vrindaban and confronted the leader of the Chaitanya movement there. In one version of the story she is said to have met with Rupa Goswami—in other versions it is Jiva Goswami, his nephew, many years later.
In fact the meeting never took place. Jiva Goswami was a renunciant—an ascetic monk living in strict conditions of austerity. He never met with women, but was cloistered under a vow of celibacy. When Mirabai was informed that, as a man, the saint held no meetings with women, she famously retorted, “There is only one man in Vrindaban—my Lord Krishna.” Whether this famous retort ever took place, it is often cited as an example of Mira’s rejection of male authority. It reflects her view that mysticism is personal and has no need for any patriarchal religious hierarchy.
Mirabai’s memory, her legend and the poems attributed to her have encouraged generations of bards and singers who succeeded her to compose in her style and to sing ecstatic bhajans glorifying Krishna. The poetry and song of Mirabai is something like that of Homer, in that it is impossible to know what the original bard may have penned, and what has been written later. No manuscripts of her work survive and all of her songs have been passed down in the oral tradition. As a consequence the earliest versions of poems said to have been written by Mirabai date from the 18th Century, hundreds of years after her passing.
Many of the songs of Mirabai are something like “fan-fiction,” songs written in her “style.” Writing on Mirabai, John Stratton Hawley points out that “When one speaks of the poetry of Mirabai, then, there is always an element of enigma there must always remain a question about whether there is any real relations between the poems we cite and a historical Mira.”
And yet, various towns throughout Northern India maintain oral traditions that include songs said to have been written by Mirabai. And of all the saints of the 16th Century bhakti movement, she is still perhaps the most famous and revered.
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| Akbar the Great |
These traditions play into our previous point about syncretism. Akbar’s interest in forging a religious synthesis that could harmonize Islamic and Vedic tradition was moved by practical considerations. He could not rule effectively in the midst of a religious civil war. If Sufi mysticism finds common ground with Hindoo mysticism, why not promote the syncretic harmony of the two?
On its face, Mirabai’s bhakti would seem to exclude any nexus with Islam. But her focus on union with God—even erotic union with God—bears deeper scrutiny. The idea of a personal union with God is appealing. If we can leave aside the rules and rituals of Islam, Christianity, and Vedic dharma, what are we left with if not union with God. And if that is the essential goal, what need of so many differences.
In the time of Akbar, the world was ablaze with religious turmoil. The 16th Century saw the rise of the Spanish Inquisition and the burning of heretics and Jews at the stake. The “Discovery” of the Americas was underway with the conquest of Mexico and the wholesale destruction of the ancient Mayan, Aztec, and Incan civilizations. Martin Luther had begun the Protestant movement with his 99 theses, demanding a Reformation of the Catholic Church. And in India, wars had torn the country apart between Hindoo and Muslim factions. Why not look for a more spiritual path that would go beyond superficial differences and unlock the door to spiritual harmony?
Mirabai’s bhakti and the way of the Sufi mystics seemed to offer just the key. If her mystical experience is real, then union with God through devotion is a universal truth. Anyone can do what Mirabai did and achieve union with God through personal realization. Of course, Mirabai is interested in a personal God, but this problem can be finessed. In the end, once we achieve enlightenment through bhakti (or any other kind of mysticism) the personal God dissolves into the oneness of the Sufi mystics. This is the promise of Akbar’s syncretism and the harmonious solution offered by the superficial approach to bhakti so favored by the impersonalist or Shankar school of Vedanta.
Not that Mirabai’s “devotion” is entirely false or invented. There is no doubt that her religious sentiment is genuine. But her actual “devotion” to Krishna is vague, as we shall see. Her “mystical” experience is real in the sense that it moves her closer to divinity—but her “personal” view of divinity has more in common with Shankar’s Vedanta than with the more well-defined bhakti of the bhagavat school promoted by Jiva Goswami whom she famously rejected and insulted.
It is risky to say anything critical about saints—especially when universally revered. But let’s take a closer look at Mirabai’s bhakti.
Let me give a simple example. I remember when The Beatles visited Southern California to play a concert at the Hollywood Bowl in 1964. At 13 years old my sister was a big fan of John Lennon. She heard that the Beatles were staying at the Bel Air hotel and went there with her friend Lydia. Before she was detained by hotel security, she managed to climb the back wall surrounding the hotel garden and catch a glimpse of John and Paul lounging around the swimming pool with reporters. She maintained a lifelong crush on John Lennon and wept when he died.
My sister hated Cynthia Lennon with a passion. She hated Yoko even more. She imagined herself married to John Lennon for the longest time. None of this made John Lennon aware of her existence.
My point is that we may imagine ourselves as “married” to God, but this may be news to God Himself. God may have a personal aspect; it is not impossible. And Krishna may be the Supreme Personality of Godhead; after all, He is Divinity as pure beauty and joy. It is often said that “God is Love” and the Krishna conception is the idea of God as the embodiment of love.
And yet, it seems that the Infinite is not so easily attained. Simply imagining oneself married to divinity does not make it so. Anymore than imagining oneself married to John Lennon makes it so.
If God is a person, and if Krishna is God, then one would have to respect the details of his Godhead. Jiva Goswami was occupied in doing just that. A king does not operate without a court. The Christian God has angels and saints. The Hindoo God Krishna has his entourage, his personal associates and servitors in Vrindaban, including divine lovers such as the gopis of Vrindaban. One does not become an intimate of God simply through imagination, even if one is capable of great poetry.
Love of God, Love for Krishna is not a cheap thing. It is not that simply by singing a few songs and declaring oneself to be Krishna’s wife or lover that it becomes so. But if it is not love that we aspire to but “one-ness” everything changes.
Mirabai’s bhakti is distinct from that of the followers of Shri Chaitanya and the bhagavat-bhakti school in the sense that Mirabai’s bhakti excludes Krishna’s entourage. Mirabai is not willing to allow anyone else to be Krishna’s lover, any more than my sister permitted the existence of a Cynthia Lennon or a Yoko Ono.
But if one is not truly serious about aspiring to devotion, to dedication, to the bhakti of the bhagavat school—if one is merely interested in liberation from material existence and oneness with the divine, then Mira’s path makes perfect sense.
Mira is praised for her rebellious nature. She rejects all hierarchies and relies only on her own personal mysticism, her own insight into divinity. She foregoes taking shelter of any guru. But real bhakti is not possible without submission to a spiritual mentor.
After all, how do we know whether or not our so-called “love” is mere sentiment? True spiritual realization will look to historical examples of realized souls. We are not alone. We are not the first to walk on the spiritual path. Among those who have gone before us are great saints who have recieved revealed truths. Some of these have written their revelations in the form of scriptures. Revealed scriptures, the traditions of saints, living saints and spiritual mentors are the checks on our own frivolity. Guru, shastra and sadhu are the threefold traditions that will help seekers on any path to find their way forward.
Mirabai eschews all these. This is one of the reasons for her popularity. She teaches that you don’t need a guru or teacher; you don’t need any scriptures; you don’t need to take help from any other realized soul—all you need is love.
Unfortunately, real love implies sacrifice—not merely words. Mirabai herself may have had a deep religious experience; we can never truly know. But to imitate her path by eschewing guru, shastra, and sadhu is dangerous. One who wants to understand the true meaning of bhakti must not reject Jiva Goswami and his followers as superficial.
But in the time of Akbar, her example and message seemed a useful piece of the puzzle needed to bring society together harmoniously. In rejecting gurus, scriptures, and social norms, Mirabai teaches that we can find a personal religion in the same way that the Sufi mystics found God. The idea of a mystic path that avoids so much formality appeal to rules like Akbar as a solution to the fanaticism of both Muslims and Hindoos.
Scholars in the time of Akbar and since have seen that the mysticism of Vedanta coincides with the Islamic Sufis in the idea that enlightenment is found in oneness with divinity.
In this view, we are all spiritual essence; we are like drops of water in an infinite sea of divine energy. Enlightenment is found when the drops of spiritual energy merge into the Divine Ocean. The Infinite is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. In this sense, the universal consciousness of the Sufi mystics has much in common with the Brahman of the Hindoos. And if the goal of spiritual essence is to become one with the divine light of infinite consciousness, why fight over the details of religion?
Mirabai’s appeal is that we can dedicate our lives to the service of an imaginary personal god even while embodied in our materialistic forms, finding liberation within this worship when achieving the final goal of oneness.
The ideal of oneness in Sufism and in the inchoate bhakti of such early saints as Surdas, Kabir, and Mirabai supported the syncretism sought by Akbar in order to create a more harmonious India. As a tactic, his curious harmony held. Akbar ruled the Mughal empire successfully from 1556 to 1605 and extended power over most of the Indian subcontinent. His search for religious harmony and tolerance preserved the empire during his lifetime. He formed alliances with the Rajput kings, uniting India as a people, based on new and universal truths.
But, syncretism is not the final word in theism. The analysis of divinity offered by the Vaishnavas of the Bhagavat school headed by Rupa, Sanatana and Jiva Goswami find that while such mystic experience as Mirabai’s might have validity, it is but one aspect of theistic realization.
The Bhagavat thus holds:
वदन्ति तत् तत्त्व-विदस्
तत्तं यज् ज्ञानम् अद्वयम्
ब्रह्मेति परमात्मेति
भगवान् इति शब्द्यते
vadanti tat tattva-vidas
tattaṁ yaj jñānam advayam
brahmeti paramātmeti
bhagavān iti śabdyate
Seers of the truth have found that the One Truth may be seen in three aspects: Indivisible Oneness, God Within, and the Personality of Godhead, or Bhagavan.
(SB 1.2.11)
In other words, oneness is a possible realization of divinity, but incomplete. The discovery of God within is superior. But best of all is to achieve complete realization in eternal consciousness and bliss in a personal relationship with the Supreme Person.
To be continued…
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