Maithili pandits in Darbhanga (मैथिली)

Maithili in Darbhanga

Maithili is the language of Mithila, written historically in Tirhuta and now usually in Devanagari, and it has its own ritual literature — Vidyapati's songs are sung at domestic rites five centuries after he wrote them.

Mithila also keeps its own karmakanda manuals, and a marriage there is conducted against genealogical registers, the Panji, maintained by panjikars. A Maithili-speaking pandit is usually reading from that tradition rather than translating into it.

Darbhanga is the centre of Mithila, and the Maithili rite is the local rite rather than a variant of something else. The Panji registers consulted before a marriage are kept in this tradition, the sabha at Saurath is a day's travel away, and a pandit here reads from Mithila's own manuals as a matter of course.

That extends to the ordinary domestic rites too. The mundan, the upanayana and the shraddha follow Maithila karmakanda, with commentators the rest of north India does not use, and a Darbhanga family asking for Maithili is asking for that whole tradition rather than for a translation of a common one.