Editing Mirabai (section)

==Biography==
[[File:Rajasthan-Chittore Garh 09.jpg|left|230px|thumb|Meera's temple to [[Krishna]] at [[Chittor Fort]], Rajasthan]]
Primary records about Meera are not available, and scholars have attempted to establish Meera's biography from secondary literature that mentions her.

Mirabai was born into a [[Rathore dynasty|Rathore Rajput]] royal family in [[Kudki]] (modern-day [[Beawar|Beawar district]] of [[Rajasthan]]), and spent her childhood in [[Merta City|Merta]]. She was the daughter of Ratan Singh Rathore and grand daughter of Rao Dudaji of Merta.<ref>{{Citation |title=Founding of Sahitya Akademi |date=2018-10-08 |work=Independent India, 1947-2000 |pages=11 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781315838212-36 |access-date=2024-02-09 |publisher=Routledge |doi=10.4324/9781315838212-36 |doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 |isbn=978-1-315-83821-2|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last1=Pandey |first1=S. M. |last2=Zide |first2=Norman |date=1965 |title=Mīrābāī and Her Contributions to the Bhakti Movement |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1061803 |journal=History of Religions |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=54–73 |doi=10.1086/462514 |jstor=1061803 |issn=0018-2710|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Meera unwillingly married [[Bhoj Raj]], the crown prince of [[Mewar]], in 1516.<ref name="usha13">Usha Nilsson (1997), Mira bai, Sahitya Akademi, {{ISBN|978-8126004119}}, pages 12-13</ref><ref>Nancy Martin-Kershaw (2014), ''Faces of the Feminine in Ancient, Medieval, and Modern India'' (Editor: Mandakranta Bose), Oxford University Press, {{ISBN|978-0195352771}}, page 165</ref> Her husband was wounded in one of the ongoing wars with the [[Delhi Sultanate]] in 1518, and he died from battle wounds in 1521. Both her father and father-in-law ([[Rana Sanga]]) died a few days after their defeat in the [[Battle of Khanwa]] against [[Babur]], the first [[Mughal Emperor]].<ref name=":1" />

After the death of Rana Sanga, Vikram Singh became the ruler of Mewar. According to a popular legend, her in-laws tried to assassinate her multiple times. These attempts included sending Meera a glass of poison and telling her it was nectar, and sending her a basket with a snake instead of flowers.<ref name="brit1" /><ref name="usha13" /> According to hagiographic legends, she was not harmed in either case, with the snake miraculously becoming, depending on the version, a Krishna idol or a garland of flowers.<ref name="nancy" /><ref name="usha13" /> In another version of these legends, she is asked by Vikram Singh to drown herself. When she attempts to do so, she merely floats on the water.<ref name="usha17">Usha Nilsson (1997), Mira bai, Sahitya Akademi, {{ISBN|978-8126004119}}, pages 16-17</ref> Yet another legend states that the third Mughal emperor, [[Akbar]], came with [[Tansen]] to visit Meera and presented her with a pearl necklace. Scholars doubt this happened, as Tansen joined Akbar's court in 1562, 15 years after Meera's death.<ref name="usha17" /> Similarly, some stories state that [[Ravidas]] was her [[guru]] (teacher), but there is no corroborating historical evidence for this.<ref name="usha17" /><ref name=":0" />
[[File:Painting of Bhagat Mirabai and Girdharji (Krishna), from a folio within an illustrated manuscript of the Prem Ambodh Pothi.jpg|thumb|Painting of Bhagat Mirabai and Girdhar, from a folio within an illustrated manuscript of the ''Prem Ambodh Pothi'']]
As of 2014, the three oldest records that mention Meera<ref>are Munhata Nainsi's Khyat from [[Jodhpur]], Prem Ambodh from [[Amritsar]], and Nabhadas's Chappy from [[Varanasi]]; see: JS Hawley and GS Mann (2014), Culture and Circulation: Literature in Motion in Early Modern India (Editors: Thomas De Bruijn and Allison Busch), Brill Academic, {{ISBN|978-9004264472}}, pages 131-135</ref> are all from the 17th century and written within 150 years of Meera's death. Neither mentions anything about her childhood, the circumstances of her marriage to Bhojraj or that the people who persecuted her were her in-laws or from some Rajput royal family.<ref>J. S. Hawley and G. S. Mann (2014), ''Culture and Circulation: Literature in Motion in Early Modern India'' (Editors: Thomas De Bruijn and Allison Busch), Brill Academic, {{ISBN|978-9004264472}}, pages 131-135</ref> Nancy Martin-Kershaw states that to the extent that Meera was challenged and persecuted, religious or social conventions were unlikely to have been the cause, rather the likely cause was political chaos and military conflicts between the Rajput kingdom and the Mughal Empire.

Other stories state that Mira Bai left the kingdom of Mewar and went on pilgrimages. In her last years, Meera lived in [[Dwarka]] or [[Vrindavan]], where legends state she miraculously disappeared by merging into an idol of Krishna after being poisoned by her brother-in-law in 1547.<ref name="tushomaniralife" /><ref name="brit1" /> While miracles are contested by scholars for the lack of historical evidence, it is widely acknowledged that Meera dedicated her life to Krishna, composing songs of devotion, and was one of the most important poet-saints of the Bhakti movement period.<ref name="brit1" /><ref name="usha17" /><ref>John S. Hawley (2005), ''Three Bhakti Voices: Mirabai, Surdas, and Kabir in Their Times and Ours'', Oxford University Press, {{ISBN|978-0195670851}}, pages 128-130</ref>