Places

Janaki Mandir, JanakpurPilgrimageDhanusha (Nepal)

A large marble temple completed in 1910 on the site tradition identifies as Sita's home, and the centre of the Nepali half of Mithila. Vivaha Panchami here draws pilgrims from both countries.

Punaura DhamPilgrimageSitamarhi

The site identified in Bihar as Sita's birthplace, with a temple and tank, and a large Ram Navami fair.

The painting villages — Jitwarpur and RantiHeritageMadhubani

Two villages where a large proportion of households paint, several of them holding national awards. Work is bought directly from the artists' homes; the walls and courtyards are painted too.

Darbhanga Raj palacesHeritageDarbhanga

Nargona and Anand Bagh palaces, built by one of the largest zamindari estates in India, now partly occupied by a university. Grand, decaying, and the physical record of the wealth that funded Maithili scholarship.

Ahilya AsthanPilgrimageDarbhanga

The shrine at the place identified with the Ahalya episode of the Ramayana, with an annual Ram Navami fair.

Ugratara MahishiPilgrimageSaharsa

A Tantric Tara shrine, and the village remembered as Mandan Mishra's — where the debate with Shankaracharya is said to have been judged by Mandan's wife Bharati.

VaishaliHeritageVaishali

The seat of the Vajji confederacy, often described as one of the earliest republics; the site of Mahavira's birth at Kundagram nearby, of the Buddha's last sermon, and of the second Buddhist council. An Ashokan pillar with a lion capital stands at Kolhua.

Kusheshwar Asthan Bird SanctuaryNatureDarbhanga

A wetland in the Kosi–Kamla flood basin that fills with migratory birds from November — Siberian crane records, bar-headed geese and large numbers of waterfowl.

Best time: December–February.

Kosi Barrage and the embankmentsHeritageSupaul

The 1963 barrage at Bhimnagar and the embankments running south from it — an engineering scheme that dramatically changed where the river floods, and whose consequences the region has argued about ever since.

Simaria DhamPilgrimageBegusarai

A Ganga ghat where a month-long kalpvas is observed in Kartik, with a tented camp on the sands — Mithila's own version of the Prayag practice.

Raj NagarHeritageMadhubani

An early twentieth-century palace complex built by the Darbhanga Raj and wrecked by the 1934 earthquake, left as a group of ruined temples and halls in a field.

Bhimeshwar and the Kamla banksNatureMadhubani, Jhanjharpur

Riverbank country where the makhana ponds are densest and the harvesting can be watched between May and August.