Padmini, also known as Padmavati or Rani Padmavati, was a 13th–14th century queen of the Kingdom of Mewar in India. Several medieval texts mention her, although these versions are disparate and many modern historians question their overall authenticity.

The Jayasi text describes her story as follows: Padmavati was an exceptionally beautiful princess of the Sinhalese kingdom (in Sri Lanka). Ratan Sen, the Rajput ruler of Chittor Fort, heard about her beauty from a talking parrot named Hiraman. After an adventurous quest, he won her hand in marriage and brought her to Chittor. Ratan Sen was captured and imprisoned by Alauddin Khalji, the Sultan of Delhi. While Ratan Sen was in prison, the king of Kumbhalner Devapal became enamoured with Padmavati's beauty and proposed to marry her. Ratan Sen returned to Chittor and entered into a duel with Devapal, in which both died. Alauddin Khalji laid siege to Chittor to obtain Padmavati. Facing defeat against Khalji, before Chittor was captured, she and her companions committed Jauhar (self-immolation) thereby defeating Khalji's aim of obtaining her and safeguarding their honour. Coupled with the Jauhar, the Rajput men died fighting on the battlefield.

Many other written and oral tradition versions of her life exist in Hindu and Jain traditions. These versions differ from the Sufi poet Jayasi's version. For example, Rani Padmini's husband Ratan Sen dies fighting the siege of Alauddin Khalji, and thereafter she leads a jauhar. In these versions, she is characterised as a Hindu Rajput queen, who defended her honour against a Muslim invader. Over the years she came to be seen as a historical figure and appeared in several novels, plays, television serials and movies.

Several 16th-century texts survive that offer varying accounts of Rani Padmini's life. Of these, the earliest is the Awadhi language Padmavat (1540 CE) of the Sufi composer Malik Muhammad Jayasi, likely composed originally in the Persian script. The 14th-century accounts written by Muslim court historians that describe Alauddin Khalji's 1302 CE conquest of Chittorgarh make no mention of this queen. Jain texts between 14th and 16th century – Nabinandan Jenudhar, Chitai Charitra and Rayan Sehra have mentioned Rani Padmini.

Subsequently, many literary works mentioning her story were produced; these can be divided into four major categories:

In addition to these various literary accounts, a variety of legends are located in vernacular oral traditions from about 1500 or later; these have evolved over time. The oral legends and the literary accounts share the same characters and general plot, but diverge in the specifics and how they express the details. The oral versions narrate the social group's perspective while the early literary versions narrate the author's court-centric context. According to Ramya Sreenivasan, the oral and written legends about Rani Padmini likely fed each other, each version of her life affected by the sensitivities of the audience or the patron, with Muslim versions narrating the conquest of Chitor by Delhi Sultanate under Alauddin Khalji, while the Hindu and Jain versions narrating the local resistance to the sultan of Delhi exemplified in the life of Padmini.

In the Jayasi version, states Ramya Sreenivasan, Padmavati is described as the daughter of Gandharvsen, the king of the island kingdom of Sinhala (Singhal kingdom, Sri Lanka). A parrot tells Chittor's king Ratansen of Padmavati and her beauty. Ratansen is so moved by the parrot's description that he renounces his kingdom, becomes an ascetic, follows the parrot as the bird leads him across seven seas to the island kingdom. There he meets Padmavati, overcomes obstacles and risks his life to win her. He succeeds, marries her and brings his wife to Chittor where he becomes king again. Ratansen expels a Brahmin scholar for misconduct, who then reaches Sultan Alauddin and tells him about the beautiful Padmavati. The sultan lusts for Padmavati, and invades Chittor in his quest for her. Ratansen, meanwhile, dies in another battle with a rival Rajput ruler. Padmavati immolates herself. Alauddin thus conquers Chitor for the Islamic state, but Alauddin fails in his personal quest.

This earliest known literary version is attributed to Jayasi, whose year of birth and death are unclear. He lived during the rule of Babur, the Islamic emperor who started the Mughal Empire after ending the Delhi Sultanate. Jayasi's compositions spread in the Sufi tradition across the Indian subcontinent. Variants derived from Jayasi's work on Padmavati were composed between the 16th and 19th centuries and these manuscripts exist in the Sufi tradition. In one, princess Padmavati became close friends with a talking parrot named Hiraman. She and the parrot together studied the Vedas – the Hindu scriptures. Her father resented the parrot's closeness to his daughter, and ordered the bird to be killed. The panicked parrot bade goodbye to the princess and flew away to save its life. It was trapped by a bird catcher, and sold to a Brahmin. The Brahmin bought it to Chittor, where the local king Ratan Sen purchased it, impressed by its ability to talk.