Widowed young and refusing to remarry into a royal household that would have curtailed her devotion, Mirabai walked out to become a wandering devotee of Krishna. Her attempted poisoning and escape are legendary. Her songs — some four hundred are attributed to her — express a love so direct it made institutions uncomfortable.
The line between her historical life and her hagiography is blurred, as it often is with great saints. What is not blurred is the afterlife of her songs: they are still sung, still transformative, still a door into Bhakti.