One current in this sea of poetry was Krishnaite and as such not directly connected with Râmânand. Vidyâpati[609] sang of the loves of Kṛishṇa and Râdhâ in the Maithili dialect and also in a form of Bengali. In the early fifteenth century (c. 1420) we have the poetess Mirâ Bai, wife of the Raja of Chitore who gained celebrity and domestic unhappiness by her passionate devotion to the form of Kṛishṇa known as Ranchor. According to one legend the image came to life in answer to her fervent prayers, and throwing his arms round her allowed her to meet a rapturous death in his embrace. This is precisely the sentiment which we find later in the teaching of Vallabhâcârya and Caitanya. The hymns of the Bengali poets have been collected in the _Padakalpataru_, one of the chief sacred books of the Bengali Vaishṇavas. From Vallabhâcârya spring the group of poets who adorned Braj or the Muttra district. Pre-eminent among them is the blind Sur Das who flourished about 1550 and wrote such sweet lyrics that Kṛishṇa himself came down and acted as his amanuensis. A somewhat later member of the same group is Nâbhâ Das, the author of the Bhakta Mâlâ or Legends of the Saints, which is still one of the most popular religious works of northern India.[610] Almost contemporary with Sur Das was the great Tulsi Das and Grierson[611] enumerated thirteen subsequent writers who composed Râmâyaṇas in some dialect of Hindi. A little later came the Mahratta poet Tukarâm (born about 1600) who gave utterance to Krishnaism in another language. Tulsi Das is too important to be merely mentioned as one in a list of poets. He is a great figure in Indian religion, and the saying that his Râmâyaṇa is more popular and more honoured in the North-western Provinces than the Bible in England is no exaggeration.[612] He came into the world in 1532 but was exposed by his parents as born under an unlucky star and was adopted by a wandering Sâdhu. He married but his son died and after this loss he himself became a Sâdhu. He began to write his Râmâyaṇa in Oudh at the age of forty-three, but moved to Benares where he completed it and died in 1623. On the Tulsi Ghat, near the river Asi, may still be seen the rooms which he occupied. They are at the top of a lofty building and command a beautiful view over the river[4].