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PLAYS
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The songs of the play are very important in emphasizing the importance of the theme of love of Krishna. They are enchanting and sung by Mira in rapt ecstasy. She often dances while singing. These songs have the capacity to carry the readers on to the sublime. In fact, Dilip Roy has translated Mira's Hindi bhajans into English with great mastery of that language. While listening to Mira's songs, the devotees experience the same sentiment of love of Krishna. Her guru addresses her as 'the minstrel of Gopi love' and also as 'His( Krishna's) beloved minstrel Maid'. Pundarik is fascinated by her 'angel-voice and bows down at her feet.
The time of the action of the play is not mentioned, but it can be guessed that the action might have taken place in the second half of the sixteenth century.
The place of the action is Mira's temple situated in Brindaban. The unity of place is thus fully observed. Act I takes place on the full moon night of Jhulan Pumima, Act II, on the full moon night of Ras, and Act III takes place a month later. Thus unity of time, too, is observed well.
Mira, too, like Sri Chaitanya is a lyrical drama. It exhibits all the figures and flawless blank verse discussed at length in Sri Chaitanya, Consider, for example, the following lines:
"I submit that He came to greet me Like moon's kiss on eve's brow. I was so I came
To know through Love the miracle of His Love. "42
Sanatan describes Mira as daughter of divinity and stainless purity' and a "minstrel of Gopi-love, to whom our Lord/Of bliss and loveliness, comes to reveal/His inviolable self of harmony."43
Thus on the 'structure of the biography of Mira are overlaid all the textural elements of drama and lyric. Hence, the play assumes an extraordinarily artistic form.
Roy came into contact with Indira Devi, his daughter-disciple in 1948. At that time, she had frequent experiences of samadhi during which she had visions of Mira. At times, Mira was narrating her parables of Love of Krishna, at other times, she sang her devotional songs to Indira Devi. After such experiences, Indira Devi used to dictate those songs to Roy. A detailed account of these experiences is included in Chapter IV of this work. This intense internal contact of Indira Devi's with Mira, inspired Roy to write this play. They also staged this play at their temple-house, Hari Krishna Mandir, Pune, in which Indira Devi performed the role of Mira and Dilip Roy himself, that of Sanatan.
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