Mithila: The Naming

Hello all !!!

A warm welcome to a new day, a new blog. Today, we shall discuss about one of the places of our country which has had a great legacy of art, culture, cuisines, traditional values, etc. and has been rolling in the golden pages of history since the era of Ramayana and long before that.

Mithila : The kingdom of King Janaka

In this first blog about the holy land of Mithila, I will try to unfold the events behind the nomenclature of Mithila through an interesting story and hope you like it. 

Before starting the story, let's understand that one must always remember that every particular thing in this universe makes sense and that nothing is useless or meaningless. Each particular word and each individual existence in the planet holds a certain meaning; perhaps the meaning may not be known to us but definitely it has a meaning. For example, the colour white. Whenever we see the colour white through our eyes, it is said that it creates a vibrating resonance in our brain with a sound "dhab,dhab,dhab". From this vibrating sound wave, came the Sanskrit root verb 'dhav' and from this root verb came the word 'dhavala' (‌‌धवल) meaning white in Sanskrit and Hindi.So, we see how a particular acoustic vibration has evolved a word with a specific meaning. This shall make more sense when we enter the story. So, without further ado, let's dive into it.

On the north of the beloved land of Mithila, stands the Himalayas; to the west is the Narayani-Gandak river; in the south the Ganga; and to the east the Kosi-Mahananda river.

Mithila first gained prominence after being settled by the Indo-Aryans who established the Videha kingdom. The ancient name of Mithila was 'Videha'. When the Aryans first entered India from the parts of Central Asia to the west due to lack of sufficient land, food and water in Central Asia, they advanced towards Allahabad and then proceeded to Varanasi. After arriving India, they were amused to see that here they could find plenty of food, water, clothing, etc. and also that the land was highly fertile. So, they first named the country as 'Jambudwipa' (जम्बुद्वीप) - where 'Jambu' refers to Jaamun (blackberries) and 'dwipa' means island i.e. an island with an abundance of stones of the colour of blackberries. Later, they named the country to 'Bharatvarsa' where 'Bhar' is to feed or to maintain, 'ta' means that which helps in expansion and 'varsa' means land i.e. the land where there is abundance of resources for existence and expansion. So now we see how each particular word makes unique and complete sense to us.

However, as the Aryans moved eastwards from Allahabad, they noticed that the people of the eastern region were established in great art and culture. During the further movement, some minor clashes occured between the Aryans and the indigenous population, but, moving eastwards the sense of superiority and vanity of culture in the Aryans was almost deflated.

Actually, Allahabad was originally known as 'Prayag', where 'Pra' means well and 'Yaga' means activity i.e. a place where different activities of life are performed in a very nice way. After coming into Varanasi, the Aryans found it ineffectual to fight with the virtuous people there, because the entire land was covered by Tantriks. So, the Aryans declared that those who would advance eastwards would be degenerated. This declaration was made with a purpose to avoid any sort of struggle with the people of eastern India, for any such struggle would certainly mean Aryans' defeat. Thus, Mithila, Magadh, Bengal and Assam being parts of the eastern India, were declared as Non-Aryans land and that all Aryans were prohibited to enter the area.

But, the land of Mithila was extremely fertile and Aryans had their evil eye on this land. Being greedy to possess Mithila, Aryans stood in a dilemma whether or not to advance and fight to occupy the land. Those of them who crossed the Sarayu river and entered Mithila were considered of an inferior caste and were called 'Sarayupari Brahmans'. But, as their greed gradually increased, they even started crossing the Narayani-Gandak river to enter into Mithila. Aryans who came to Mithila became quite prosperous and gained everything they desired but were hated by and considered as of an inferior caste by their colleague Aryans who were left on the other side of the river. Behind this psychology of hatred was the instinct of greed and enviousness. Thus, the Aryans declared that the land of Videha kingdom is unholy to live in.

In those days there was a rule in Videha that during the period of performance of a sacrifice, five scholars were required to be present. One of them would be scholar of the Atharvaveda who was called Brahman, another would be scholar of the Yajurveda who was called Adhvarju, the third would be scholar of the Samaveda who was called Udgata, the fourth would be scholar of the Rigveda who was called Ritwika and the fifth being the supervisor of the other four scholars was called Hota. This was the time when it was believed that if people perform yagna or sacrifices, they would become holy and all of the undesired would be degenerated. In line with this belief, the then king of Videha thought to perform a sacrifice according to the injunctions of the Vedas so that the people could no longer declare his kingdom as unholy, Non-Aryan land. So, he assembled three prominent hotas or sacrificial supervisors and performed the sacrifice; and thus the land where the sacrifice was performed with the help of those three hotas came to be known as 'Trihotriyabhumi'. Gradually, the word transformed into 'Tirhotiyabhumi' in Magadhi and Prakrit and in old Maithili, it became 'Tirhut'.

The king who performed the sacrifice was King Mithi from whom Mithila got its name. In Sanskrit, the root verb 'la' means to hold and thus came the name Mithila meaning 'the land which is held by King Mithi'.

This was the story behind the naming of Mithila, the land of Janaka. I hope you would have enjoyed the story and request you to share and comment what you like about the place. 

Thanks a lot for your precious time.

Jai Hind!!!