All I Was Doing Was Breathing (Historical Context)

Historical Context

The God Krishna

Krishna is worshipped by Hindus as an incarnation of the supreme god, Vishnu. Little is known for certain about the historical Krishna, but scholars suggest that he was a spiritual teacher and a member of the warrior caste who fought on the side of the Pandava clan in a great battle recorded in the Indian epic the Mahabharata. Legends grew up about him, and he came to be worshipped as a divine being who took human form. The cult of Krishna goes back to at least the fourth century B.C.E.

There are many legends about Krishna's birth and life. The story goes that Kansa, an evil king, heard a prophecy that he would be killed by the eighth son of Devaki, his sister. Kansa had Devaki's first six sons killed at birth; the seventh was stillborn, and the eighth, who was Krishna, escaped. Krishna, the divine infant, was raised by the daughter of a cowherd, who loved him as her own. Krishna became a mischievous, charming boy, known for playing pranks on the milkmaids (as the young women who tend the cows are called in Hindu tradition), such as stealing their cream and upsetting their milk pails. According to one story, when the girls went bathing in the river, Krishna took their clothes and refused to give them back until the girls came out and showed themselves to him one by one.

As a child, Krishna possessed supernatural powers and was able to rid the country of demons, which won him the love of all the milkmaids. His favorite milkmaid was named Radha, and she became his lover, even though she was a married woman. In later interpretations of this aspect of the myth, the love between Radha and Krishna became an allegory for the love between the individual soul and God. In manhood, Krishna returned to his place of birth and killed his wicked uncle, restoring righteousness to society. He acquired many wives and continued to slay demons.

The spiritual teachings of Krishna are contained in the Bhagavad Gita (meaning "Song of the Lord"). The Gita, one of Hinduism's most sacred and popular texts, was written probably in the second century B.C.E. or later. Krishna gives his teaching to the warrior Arjuna on the battlefield. His teachings include the essence of bhakti, or devotion, promising that if a person is sincerely and intensely devoted to Krishna, Krishna will return that love and grant the devotee spiritual salvation.

India in the Sixteenth Century

Mirabai's birthplace, Merta, was the capital city of the independent and fairly prosperous state of Merta, although it was less powerful than the neighboring state of Mewar, where Mirabai lived after her marriage. (Both states became part of the modern state of Rajasthan.) There was traditionally much rivalry between the two states, and there were also constant internal feuds and dissension within the ruling clans. Because of these internal conflicts and because these states were often fighting each other, they were ill prepared for the threat posed by the Muslim Turks, who wanted to expand their rule into India.

In 1527, Merta and Mewar managed to put aside their differences and combine to fight the invading Turks, who were led by Bābur. However, the Indian states were defeated in the battle of Khānua, in which Ratan Singh, who is said to be Mirabai's father, was killed. This battle marked the establishment of Muslim rule in India, which was continued by Bābur's son Humāyūn following Bābur's death in 1531. The Mogul Empire was further extended under the rule of Akbar the Great, who reigned from 1556 to 1605, by which time the empire had expanded from Afghanistan across most of northern India.

The Warrior Ideal

Mewar was one of the Indian states that became known for resisting Mogul domination. Its ruling ethos, according to Parita Mukta in her book Upholding the Common Life: The Community of Mirabai, was that of the Rajput, the warrior class. The Rajputs glorified militarism and war. Dying in battle was considered a noble death, and some of the fallen warriors were worshipped as gods by large numbers of the lower classes. One of the reasons Mirabai faced persecution was that she rebelled against the warrior code and everything it involved. As Mukta explains, the society in which Mirabai lived was a patriarchal one, a brotherhood based on concepts of loyalty and honor. Feudal ideas of duty and service to the master and lord were the standards of behavior that held society together. For a woman, this meant accepting the authority of her husband. Since Mirabai, according to the legends, placed her love for Krishna above her duty to her husband and also refused to sacrifice herself on her husband's funeral pyre, she was denounced as a destroyer of the clan, a threat to the entire structure of society. The path of bhakti (devotion) that she followed ignored traditional hierarchies based on caste or gender and created a new type of community founded on shared beliefs and forms of worship.

Compare & Contrast

• 1600s: In India, women have no independent legal rights. They are given in marriage, often to create alliances between royal families. Widows are expected to immolate themselves on their husbands' funeral pyres (a practice known as suttee, in which a widow allows herself to be burned on the pyre), although not all of them do so. Widows occupy very low social status in society. They are required to dress in drab clothes and are shunned by others. Also, they are not allowed to take part in Hindu festivals. Some widows who commit themselves to suttee do so in order to escape being carried off by Muslim soldiers as slaves or concubines.
  Today: Many laws exist in India to protect women's rights, including the Equal Remuneration Act, the Prevention of Immoral Traffic Act, and the Dowry Prohibition Act. The practice of suttee is illegal. However, according to a report issued by the U.S. State Department in 2004, the Indian government is often unable to enforce these laws, especially in rural areas in which traditions are deeply rooted. Suttee continues to be practiced in some areas; there was such an incident in Madhya Pradesh in 2002.
• 1600s: Portuguese, Dutch, and British explorers establish trading posts in India, but Hindu spiritual practices and philosophies are virtually unknown in Europe. This is because Indian scriptures are written in Sanskrit, and translations will not be made until near the end of the eighteenth century.
  Today: After some two centuries of dissemination of Indian religious and philosophical ideas in the West, Hinduism and Buddhism are part of the American cultural landscape. Indian gurus popularize meditation techniques adapted from Indian tradition, and the Hindu philosophy of the underlying unity of all things is the bedrock of spiritual beliefs and practices associated with the New Age spiritual movement. In the United States, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, founded in 1965 and known as the Hare Krishna movement, disseminates knowledge of Krishna and his teachings.
• 1600s: The Mogul Empire grows in India throughout the century and by 1700 extends to most of the Indian subcontinent. Muslim rulers vary in their attitudes to Hindus. In some cases, the Muslims destroy Hindu temples and impose taxes on non-Muslims. But some Muslim rulers display a more enlightened attitude and allow Hindu culture to flourish. There is also interchange between the two religions. Elements of the Hindu caste system enter Muslim society, and Hindus adopt the Muslim practice of purdah (keeping women secluded, away from men or strangers).
  Today: India is an independent, predominantly Hindu country, while its neighbors Pakistan and Bangladesh are Muslim. India has a secular government and is the largest democracy in the world. However, tensions exist between the Hindu majority and the Muslim minority. The holy city of Ajodhya is a frequent source of religious strife. In 1992, Hindu nationalists tear down a sixteenth-century mosque in Ajodhya. Hindus believe the mosque was built on the site of a temple marking the birthplace of the Hindu deity Lord Rama. In 2002, seventy people are killed in Gujarat province, as Hindu mobs attack Muslims in retaliation for the firebombing by Muslims of a train carrying Hindu nationalists back from Ajodhya.