In his Ramayan, Tulsidas gives an elaborate description of how the entire Mithila region of Bihar was decorated for the marriage of Sita with Ram. These decorations consisted chiefly of vivid murals depicting mythological personages, deities of the Hindu pantheon and the flora and fauna of the region. This art of painting, an established tradition even then, has survived to this day, passed down for centuries from every Maithili (resident of Mithila] mother to her daughter.

Today, these ceremonial decorations - popularly identified as Madhubani paintings, after the town which is a major centre of their export - can be seen on house walls in the districts of Champaran, Saharsa, Muzaffarpur, Vaishali, Darbhanga, Madhubani (more profusely here than elsewhere), Samastipur, parts of the districts of Monghyr, Begusarai, Bhagalpur and Purnea, which together form the region of Mithila.

The Forest of Honey
Well marked naturally by the foothills of the Himalaya in the north, the river Ganga in the south and by the rivers Mahananda and Gandaki in the east and west respectively, Mithila spreads over 25,000 sq miles of rock-free alluvial plains. It is dotted over by thousands of pools, and crops of cotton, indigo, sugarcane, wheat, rice, lentils, maize and all the vegetables of a temperate clime are grown here. It is this fertility which inspired people to name it Madhubani, the Forest of Honey. Today, Madhubani is one of Mithila's two chief towns (the other is Darbhanga).

The Domain of Women
The folk paintings of Mithila are-the exclusive monopoly ot women artists. This is a communal activity and one in whicl young girls are allowed to assist. This enables them to learn early to draw and paint - skills which are put to the test when, as grown-up women, they are expected to present the kohbar- a picture used as a marriage proposal, to a man or their choice. Heavily charged with tantric symbolism in its basic design and composition, a kohbar depicts a pictorial intercourse using the lingam (phallus) and yoni (vulva) symbols. Not only can this fresco be seen on every bedroom wall in Mithila but the first kohbars in a courtship are used to wrap various gifts.

The Divine Tapestry
Another central figure of Maithili paintings is Krishna, the eighth avatar (incarnation) of Vishnu and one of the most popular gods in India. The ecstatic circle in which he leads the gopis or his cowherd-lovers is interpreted as the wheel of life, of appearances revolving eternally. If the Shiva lingam represents mystic ecstasy, and Krishna the passionate repetition of the act of love, Rama - the seventh avatar oi Vishnu - is archetypal together with his wife Sita (an incarnation of Vishnu's wife, goddess Lakshmi), of marital devotion.

Other avatars of Vishnu; female deities like Kali, Durga, Parvati - different aspects of the same power; Lakshmi and Saraswati are all honoured at appropriate times. These divine beings are positioned centrally or lineally in the framework. In the dense background are depicted their consorts, their respective mounts, fruit bearing trees, clumps of bamboo, floral motifs and numerous other symbols to which the viewer can relate without mental strain.

Reflecting Nature's Fecundity
A scale is established to convey vastness by juxtaposing figures of human beings, animals and birds - with towering forms. The smallest of gaps is then filled with birds, leaves, flowers or ceremonial objects to show the fecundity of nature. Viewed as a whole, the harmony reflected in the utilization of space and in the picturisation, conveys the artist's understanding of peaceful co-existence of man and bird and beast.

Living in Harmony
This understanding of the importance of living in harmony was, in the past, extended even to the practice of preparing colours from plant extract. Three cardinal rules governed this : no one was to destroy another's garden, no money was to be spent on the collection of materials, and no colours were to be made out of edible plants. The artists used the juice of locally available creepers and flowers : henna leaves, the palash flower, bougainvillaea and the sap of the neem

tree, to obtain a range of colours. For black,they ingeniously removed the soot collected on the underside of their earthen cooking vessels and fixed it by using the viscous substance surrounding the seed of the be I fruit.
The Artist's Tools
Nowadays, paints are generally bought in the bazaars rather than prepared indigenously. Colours are available in powdered form, which are then mixed with goat's milk. For black, the women rely on burnt straw and for white, on powdered rice diluted with water. The colours are usually deep red, green, blue, black, light yellow, pink, and lemon. Two kinds of locally made brushes are used once the paints -e ready. A small bamboo-twig with a slightly frayed end is sed for outlines and tiny details. The filling in of space is .one with the aid of a pihua, made from tying a small piece of cloth to a twig. The outline is drawn in a single flow of the brush without preliminary sketching.

Humble Canvases
Although to the outside world Maithili paintings are available on paper, the usual base on which the women paint are the mud-walls of their dwellings. However, the use of paper (as gift wrapping) as a canvas was known long before these paintings acquired saleability. It is also used to preserve the more elaborate or less frequently drawn pictures on a smaller-scale, which then serve aide-memoires.

Tradition and The Individual
I- the Mithila murals convey a sense of timelessness, it is t'.ue to the lack of significant variation in style from p^neration to generation. Though new schools are born with e ich generation, the similarities in the use of colour, form aid iconography appear like strong currents of inherited knowledge. Many Maithili women have received recognition fur being mistresses of their art and yet it is not a unique n dividual sensibility that speaks through their artistic creations. Visible in their offerings is an anonymous creative mind with millennia of traditional knowledge.