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Mirabai and Hadewijch in Relation to Scripture and the Self

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Mirabai and Hadewijch in Relation to Scripture and the Self Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies Volume 27 Article 5 November 2014 Between and Beyond Canons: Mirabai and Hadewijch in Relation to Scripture and the Self Holly Hillgardner Bethany College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs Part of the History of Religions of Eastern Origins Commons Recommended Citation Hillgardner, Holly (2014) "Between and Beyond Canons: Mirabai and Hadewijch in Relation to Scripture and the Self," Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies: Vol. 27, Article 5. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7825/2164-6279.1577 The Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies is a publication of the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies. The digital version is made available by Digital Commons @ Butler University. For questions about the Journal or the Society, please contact [email protected]. For more information about Digital Commons @ Butler University, please contact [email protected]. Hillgardner: Between and Beyond Canons Between and Beyond Canons: Mirabai and Hadewijch in Relation to Scripture and the Self Holly Hillgardner Bethany College THIS was a woman who loved the taste of love, connotations of bodily eros, hints at a multi- and Ram knows no high, no low. sensory observational mode that goes beyond -Mirabai the single sense of sight. The epigraphs above, for example, display each woman longing to He who wishes to taste veritable Love, taste the divine. Both excerpts are part of Whether by random quest or sure attainment, longer pieces, explored later in this essay, Must keep to neither path nor way. which offer guidance for those cultivating -Hadewijch contemplative paths of longing, which, for each of these authors, are communal practices to be Mirabai, a sixteenth century bhakta, wrote shared with others. Enlisting these two passionate songs of her desire for God. Burning medieval women as guides for my comparative for him, she employed the genre of viraha- investigation into yearning’s transformative, bhakti, a mystical eroticism of longing from the broadening powers, I invite a contemplation of Vaiṣṇava tradition, as she begged for him to their juxtaposed practices of longing. “[c]ome and extinguish the fire of separation.”1 For this comparative theological Hadewijch, a thirteenth-century Beguine from experiment, I offer “focus texts” of Hadewijch’s low-country Europe, wrote poems, letters, and and Mirabai’s writing that speak to the prose that tell of her longing to become Love poignant love-longing that saturates their itself—to be “God with God.” 2 Despite their words and worlds. These texts cannot, of myriad differences across traditions, miles, and course, be read as the ultimate representations years, Hadewijch and Mirabai can each be said of the work of these women; it is important to to practice love-longing as her primary acknowledge their layered, polyvalent texts; contemplative mode. The word their diverse, concomitant traditions; and the “contemplation,” from the Latin, refers to an full array of riches that emerge in a careful, attentive gazing; yet, longing, with its comparative reading of them. For this essay, Holly Hillgardner is Assistant Professor of religious studies and philosophy at Bethany College in Bethany, WV. A comparative theologian, her other academic interests include eco-feminist theologies, mysticism across traditions, yoga studies, and transformative pedagogies. To date, she has contributed an essay to Divine Multiplicity: Trinities, Diversities, and the Nature of Religion, ed. Chris Boesel and S. Wesley Ariarajah (New York: Fordham Press, 2013). She is at work on a book, tentatively entitled Longing and Letting Go: Christian and Hindu Practices of Passionate Non-attachment. Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies 27 (2014):40-47 Published by Digital Commons @ Butler University, 2014 1 Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, Vol. 27 [2014], Art. 5 Between and Beyond Canons: Mirabai and Hadewijch in Relation to Scripture and the Self 41 however, I choose focus texts that help me God be with you and give you concentrate on three points regarding the topic True knowledge of the methods of Love; of “canons and contemplation.” Contemplation, May he enable you to understand of course, covers a wide range of devotional What the Bride says in the Song of Songs: activities, but I narrow the focus to practices of I to my Beloved, and my Beloved to me! longing for love. As I narrow the term If anyone allowed Love to conquer him, “contemplation” to practices of love-longing, I He would then conquer Love completely. also broaden the term “canon” to mean not just ecclesial boundaries that mark off dogma, but Next, she offers her advice to all who wish also a more general sense of “model,” from the “to taste veritable Love”: Greek etymology. Accordingly, I suggest that Mirabai’s and Hadewijch’s practices of love- I hope this will be your experience; longing 1) stretch the boundaries that operate And although we are waiting long for the around their traditions’ canons of scripture and event, 2) make porous the borders that separate the Let us thank Love for everything. self from others. As a third point, I submit that He who wishes to taste veritable Love, the relationship between contemplative Whether by random quest or sure practices of longing and comparative attainment, theological study might reveal similar forces of Must keep to neither path nor way. expansion and connection. In other words, He must wander in search of victory over through the multiplication of longing that Love, comparison may entail—in this case, a Both on the mountains and in the valleys, compounding of Mirabai’s, Hadewijch’s, this Devoid of consolation, in pain, in trouble; author’s, and readers’ longings—something Beyond all the ways men can think of, may be learned about the workings of That strong steed of Love bears him. interreligious comparison. As I bring Mirabai’s and Hadewich’s texts of Finally, she discusses the indispensability longing together, as one point of focus, I invite of Love for contemplation—for seeing “to the a noticing of each woman’s longing to taste depths of the Beloved.” She ends this part of love. In the following lines from one of her the letter abruptly, as she acknowledges the letters, Hadewijch encourages her fellow divine excess that cannot be fully possessed. Beguines in their questing after Love (Minne), which is a female-gendered word of For reason cannot understand fantastically flexible valence in Middle Dutch.3 How love, By Love, sees to the depths of the First, she combines the genre of secular courtly Beloved, love, which employed imagery of bravery and Perceiving how Love lives freely in all battle, along with the genre of bridal things. mysticism, known for its use of Song of Songs, Yes, when the soul has come to this liberty, to detail how one might dare to “conquer” the The liberty that Love can give, “Beloved”: It fears neither death nor life. https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol27/iss1/5 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1577 2 Hillgardner: Between and Beyond Canons Between and Beyond Canons: Mirabai and Hadewijch in Relation to Scripture and the Self 41 however, I choose focus texts that help me God be with you and give you concentrate on three points regarding the topic True knowledge of the methods of Love; of “canons and contemplation.” Contemplation, May he enable you to understand of course, covers a wide range of devotional What the Bride says in the Song of Songs: activities, but I narrow the focus to practices of I to my Beloved, and my Beloved to me! longing for love. As I narrow the term If anyone allowed Love to conquer him, “contemplation” to practices of love-longing, I He would then conquer Love completely. also broaden the term “canon” to mean not just ecclesial boundaries that mark off dogma, but Next, she offers her advice to all who wish also a more general sense of “model,” from the “to taste veritable Love”: Greek etymology. Accordingly, I suggest that Mirabai’s and Hadewijch’s practices of love- I hope this will be your experience; longing 1) stretch the boundaries that operate And although we are waiting long for the around their traditions’ canons of scripture and event, 2) make porous the borders that separate the Let us thank Love for everything. self from others. As a third point, I submit that He who wishes to taste veritable Love, the relationship between contemplative Whether by random quest or sure practices of longing and comparative attainment, theological study might reveal similar forces of Must keep to neither path nor way. expansion and connection. In other words, He must wander in search of victory over through the multiplication of longing that Love, comparison may entail—in this case, a Both on the mountains and in the valleys, compounding of Mirabai’s, Hadewijch’s, this Devoid of consolation, in pain, in trouble; author’s, and readers’ longings—something Beyond all the ways men can think of, may be learned about the workings of That strong steed of Love bears him. interreligious comparison. As I bring Mirabai’s and Hadewich’s texts of Finally, she discusses the indispensability longing together, as one point of focus, I invite of Love for contemplation—for seeing “to the a noticing of each woman’s longing to taste depths of the Beloved.” She ends this part of love. In the following lines from one of her the letter abruptly, as she acknowledges the letters, Hadewijch encourages her fellow divine excess that cannot be fully possessed. Beguines in their questing after Love (Minne), which is a female-gendered word of For reason cannot understand fantastically flexible valence in Middle Dutch.3 How love, By Love, sees to the depths of the First, she combines the genre of secular courtly Beloved, love, which employed imagery of bravery and Perceiving how Love lives freely in all battle, along with the genre of bridal things.
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