Captured by the 16th-century Indian poetess Mirabai and her works (transcribed by Robert Bly), John Harbison was especially intrigued with the manner in which she combined religion with ritual and eroticism. He has stated:

Her answers involved the ecstatic, the devotional and the artistic, but her independence and resolve and her dancer's vitality led my setting toward narrative and characterization, unusual territory for a song cycle.