Meera, they said, was mad. She is also the symbol Mahatma Gandhi chose to inspire his modern Indian renaissance, and the archetypal female saint, whose songs of love and devotion remain an integral part of Indian life and culture. Meera was a sixteenth century Rajput princess who renounced her privileged life and royal family to live as a mendicantwandering, dancing, and singing the praises of God. A devotee of Krishna, she was part of an influential religious movement (bhakti) that rejected distinctions of caste and creed, shunned the stultifying rituals and inaccessible scripture of conservative religion, and believed that direct union with God was possible for all - men and women, highborn and lowborn.