Mithilanchal · Middle & Lower Gangetic Plain
Mithila dresses plainly and marks ritual precisely. The Maithil wedding sari is unbleached cotton with a red or yellow border and turmeric staining; the paag — a stiff, sloping turban — is a mark of honour with a strict grammar of who may wear it and when, and it survives as a formal presentation to guests and dignitaries.
What is worn
A sloping, ridged turban of red, yellow or white, tied on a base — the single most recognisable Maithil object. Presenting a paag is how the region honours a visitor, and its colour and form used to encode standing.
Worn for: Weddings, rituals, honours
Plain white cotton, worn with a shawl at ceremonies. Ritual dress requires unstitched cloth, which is why the dhoti persists where it has gone elsewhere.
Worn for: Everyday and ritual
Unbleached cotton stained yellow with turmeric and bordered in red, worn through the wedding rituals and the thirteen days of Madhushravani that follow.
Worn for: Weddings and Madhushravani
Cotton in summer and silk for ceremony, worn in the eastern manner with the pallu over the left shoulder and often drawn over the head.
Worn for: Everyday and festive
Weaves and textiles
A running-stitch quilting on layered old cloth, outlined in chain stitch, made originally as a wrap for a newborn. Revived from the 1980s by women's groups, and now carries narrative panels about the lives of the women who stitch them. A registered geographical indication.
Cut-and-stitched applique on cotton, historically for canopies, tents and shamiyanas — figures and motifs applied in contrasting colour.
Plain coarse cotton woven for dhoti, sari and gamchha in village pit looms, much reduced by mill cloth but still the source of ritual textiles.
Jewellery
Traditional dress of Mithilanchal — garments, handloom weaves, GI-tagged textiles and jewellery. (7)