Surdas
Saint Surdas was a sixteenth-century poet who lived in Braj Bhumi, the land in North India around Mathura, where Lord Krishna spent his childhood. Born blind, Surdas learned to sing in his early childhood and, in time, became widely known for his ardent devotion to Lord Krishna. Surdas is recognized as one of the leading contributors to the Bhakti Movement in medieval India. At the command of his Guru, Mahaprabhu Vallabhacharya, Surdas composed devotional poetry to Lord Krishna in the Hindi dialect of Braj Bhasha and then set this poetry to musical ragas. He dedicated these bhajans to Lord Krishna as a form of worship. Surdas’s para-bhakti, his supreme devotion, enabled him to achieve divine vision and, though his physical sight was impaired, he could receive darshan of the Lord within. Surdas’s poetry depicts in vivid detail scenes of Lord Krishna’s childhood and of his play with the gopis, the milkmaids of Vrindavan. To this day, Saint Surdas’s simple and beautiful bhajans are sung by devotees as joyful expressions of their heartfelt love for God.