Narsinh Mehta

Context: Recently Junagadh University discovered a new species of spider and named it Narsinhmehtai in honour of Narsinh Mehta, the 15th-century poet who was a devotee of Lord Krishna.
About Narsinh Mehta

• Mehta is believed to have been born in Talaja in present-day Bhavnagar district in 1410 and died in Junagadh in 1480s.
• The family had its origin in Vadnagar in north Gujarat, and the caste name is believed to be Pandya but as members of the family were officers in kingdoms of those days, they were called Mehta (one who keeps books of accounts) which later on became the family name.
• It is believed that Mehta learnt to speak only when he was eight years old, after a holy man asked him to utter the name of Lord Krishna.

Miracles in his life

• Mehta used to spend time in Krishna-bhakti (devotion to Lord Krishna) even after his marriage to Manekba, paying little attention to family duties.
• Mehta is believed to have run away from home and done tapashcharya at a Shiva temple in Talaja for seven days.
• After that, Mehta relocated with his family to Junagadh. There too, he used to remain submerged in Krishna bhakti, writing and singing bhajan-kirtans and was a man of no means.
• One of his bhajans narrates how Ra Mandlik, the then ruler of Junagadh had imprisoned him, accusing the poet of not having seen Lord Krishna and yet claiming to have done so.
• The king had ordered that Mehta be released only if the Lord comes to the rescue of his devotee by presenting the poet with a garland. And the next morning, Mehta was found with a garland.

His Poetry

• Mehta penned more than 750 poems, called padd in Gujarat. They mainly deal with devotion to Lord Krishna, gyan (wisdom) vairagya (detachment from worldly affairs).
• Others like Shalmshano Vivah, Kunvarbainu Mameru, Hundi and Harmala are believed to be autobiographical accounts of different occasions in his life.

Vaishanavajn to tene kahiye, Mahatma Gandhi’s favourite bhajan is Mehta’s creation.

• Birds, creatures in his poetry.
• Padho re popat raja ramna, a Bhajan refers the mind of a person as parrot and urges him to worship and praise the god.
• Elsewhere, in bhajans like Vanla re vaya kanuda, he talks about calls of various birds.
• But as per Dr Urvish Vasavada, who has compiled more than 750 poems of Mehta in his book Shabdaved, Narsinh Mehtani Samagra Kavita says that spiders don’t occur anywhere in the poet’s work.
• However, in his bhajan entitled Akhil Brhmandma, ek tun shrihari, Mehta’s philosophises propose that there is one God but due to his various forms, he sounds different.