Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems. Translated by Robert Bly and Jane Hirshfield

While browsing in the local Barnes and Noble, I chanced upon this slender volume of Mirabai's poems: Mirabai, Ecstatic Poems, published by Beacon Press of Boston.

Mirabai is widely known in India as the enraptured, madly-in-love female devotee of the cowherd god of the Indian pantheon,Krishna. She became convinced early in life that she had a spiritual connection with Krishna and from then on considered him her husband. Though married off to a Rajput prince when coming of age, she did not waver from her commitment to her 'first love'. After her husband died couple of years into their marriage, she took to wandering the streets singing the praises of Krishna, employing the popular musical form of bhajans. It is through her rapturous bhajans and paens to Krishna (whom she refered to variously as Shyam and Giridhara) that we know her best. She is also considered a leading saint in the Bhakti tradition of Indian spiritual practice.

The translated poems read well, with most of them being frank declarations of spiritual love, anguish, yearning, devotion and a general disenchantment with the worldly ways. Going through the poems in this edition in the English language (tho' there have been others before), Mirabai all of a sudden emerged from the mists of legend and sainthood for me. I am glad both the eminent translators chose to use simple language and the immediate effect is one of clarity.

She comes across as a single-minded, opinionated woman; spiritual and all that and a bit touched in the head maybe, making a concession to our modern-day skepticism, but still refreshingly feminine, bold, defiant and forthright in so many ways:

"Now you want me to climb on a jackass?"

[By Bly, who titles his version "Why Mira Can't Come Back to Her Old House":]

The colors of the dark One have penetrated Mira's
body; all the other colors washed out.
Making love with the Dark One and eating little,
those are are my pearls and my carnelians.
Meditation beads and the forehead streak, those are
my scarves and my rings.
That's enough feminine wiles for me. My teacher
taught me this.
Approve me or disapprove me: I praise the Mountain
Energy night and day.
I take the path that ecstatic human beings have taken
for centuries.
I don't steal money, I don't hit anyone. What will you
charge me with?
I have felt the swaying of the elephant's shoulders;
and now you want me to climb on a jackass? Try
to be serious.

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It is one thing seeing her ochre-clad, moony pictures, the saintly image of a mere mortal almost irrationally in love with a god no less, and quite another to read her poems through which she works out the course of her love, expresses her defiance and challenges accepted behavior and social mores. They provide a more intimate glimpse into her thoughts, her concerns. Just makes her so much more accessible, so much more human...