Akka Mahadevi
Akka Mahadevi
Brahmananda
Brahmananda
Dadu Dayal
Dadu Dayal
Eknath
Eknath
Guru Nanak
Guru Nanak
Jnaneshvar
Jnaneshvar
Kabir
Kabir
Lalleshwari
Lalleshwari
Mirabai
Mirabai
Namdev
Namdev
Raidas
Raidas
Sahajo Bai
Sahajo Bai
Shankaracharya
Shankaracharya
Shivadina
Shivadina
Sunderdas
Sunderdas
Surdas
Surdas
Tukaram
Tukaram
Tulsidas
Tulsidas

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.

Bhajans by Surdas