BARA MAHA or BARA MASA (in Hindi), is a form of folk poetry in which the emotions and yearnings of the human heart are expressed in terms of the changing moods of Nature over the twelve months of the year. In this form of poetry, the mood of Nature in each particular month (of the Indian calendar) depicts the inner agony of the human heart which in most cases happens to be a woman separated from her spouse or lover.
In other words, the separated woman finds her own agony reflected in the different faces of Nature. The tradition of Bara Maha poetry is traceable to classical epochs. In Sanskrit, the Bara Maha had the form of shad ritu varnan, i.e. description of the six seasons (shad = six; ritu = season; varnan = description), the most wellknown example being Kalidasas Ritu Sanhar. The mode was commonly employed to depict the moods of the love stricken woman in separation, and it became an established vogue in medieval Indian poetry. Modern languages of northern India claim several distinguished models. In Hindi, the first instance of this poetic form occurs in Malik Muhammad Jayasis Padmavat.
In Punjabi, Guru Nanaks Bara Maha in the measure Tukhari is not only the oldest composition belonging to this genre but also the first in which the theme of love poetry has been transformed into that of spiritual import. He made the human soul the protagonist which suffers in the cesspool of transmigration as a result of its separation from the Supreme Soul. This is followed by Guru Arjans Bara Maha.