Our Story — Mithila Heritage & Artisan Craft

Bhagalpur, Bihar

The Beginning

Born from the Language of Mithila

Maithilii began with a question: what does it mean to wear your heritage? In the villages of Mithila — the ancient kingdom that straddles modern Bihar and Nepal — women have painted sacred images on the walls of their homes for thousands of years.

These are not decorations. They are prayers, stories, invocations. The lotus that blooms from mud. The fish that carries the world on its back. The wedding pavilion where Sita and Ram were joined. Each image holds a universe of meaning, passed from grandmother to granddaughter one careful brushstroke at a time.

"We did not create a brand. We created a conversation between the past and the present."

Janakī — Daughter of the Earth

The Muse

Inspired by Sita Maa

Maithilii is, at its heart, a homage to Sita Maa — daughter of the earth, queen of Mithila, embodiment of grace, resilience, and devotion. The Janaki — daughter of Janak — who was born not from the womb of a woman but from the furrowed earth itself.

In Mithila art, Sita is never portrayed as passive. She stands tall in the centre of the Kohabar — the wedding chamber — surrounded by fish and lotus, sun and moon. She is the axis around which the universe turns.

Our four collections are named for the names she has been called by: Janakī, Vaidehī, Bhūmijā, and Maithilī. Each name a different facet of the same light.

The Four Virtues of Maa

Our Collections

Four names. Four dimensions of the divine feminine. Each collection born of a different way she has been known.

Janakī

Tradition of Brilliance

Tussar silk, Kosa weaves, Aari embroidery — regal, luminous, born into light.

Vaidehī

Beyond the Body

Mulberry silk, Chanderi, Chiffon — for the woman who needs no witness.

Bhūmijā

Born of the Earth

Cotton sarees, Kohabar motifs — grounded, nourishing, rooted in something ancient.

Maithilī

She Who Is of Mithila

Shibori fusion silk — tradition distilled into contemporary form.

Artisans at Work

The Craft

How Madhubani Comes to Life

Madhubani painting is one of India's oldest living art traditions — practiced for at least 2,500 years in the Mithila region. Traditionally done by women on freshly plastered mud walls and floors, it has now found its most intimate form on cloth.

Each piece begins with the fabric. For Tussar silk sarees, we work with master weavers in Bhagalpur, Bihar — the "Silk City" — who produce the characteristic coarse, golden silk. For Chanderi, we source from handloom weavers in Madhya Pradesh.

The Madhubani painting is done by hand by artisan women in Madhubani district, using natural pigments drawn from plant extracts, minerals, and traditional preparations. No two pieces are identical. The slight variations in each brushstroke are not flaws — they are the signature of a human hand.

Seema Singh

Founder, Maithilii

The Founder

From Mithila, For Mithila

Seema Singh grew up between Patna and the villages of Mithila, where her aunts and grandmothers painted the walls of their homes for every wedding, every harvest, every festival. The painted Kohabar above the marriage bed. The lotus on the threshold. The fish curling around a doorway. These were her first vocabulary — long before she became a journalist, a broadcaster, or a documentary filmmaker.

Two decades behind a camera lens taught her something the art world rarely admits: the painters of Madhubani are not folk craftspeople waiting to be discovered. They are master artists whose work has been catalogued in the Mithila Museum in Niigata, exhibited at the Crafts Museum in Delhi, and collected internationally — yet most of them earn less than ₹400 a day.

"The art has always been world-class. What was missing was a brand that would put the artist's name on the label and pay her what her work is worth."

Maithilii is Seema's answer. Each saree and dupatta carries the name of the artist who painted it, a fair-trade share of the retail price reaches her directly, and every collection is built around a Madhubani motif rather than a Western fashion trend. The brand is small, slow, and committed to its sources — and that is exactly the point.

Founder featured in

Cosmopolitan YouStory The Better India Founder India Patna Beats Mad4India

The Hands Behind the Art

Our Artisans

Maithilii works with a network of artisan women in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh whose skill carries forward generations of living tradition.

Savitri Devi

Madhubani Painting · 25 years

Savitri learned to paint at age 8 from her grandmother. Her speciality is the Kohbar — the wedding chamber — rendered in rich ochre and deep red on tussar silk.

Pushpa Kumari

Kalamkari · 18 years

From Andhra Pradesh's rich Kalamkari tradition, Pushpa hand-draws mythological scenes and nature motifs using the kalam — the bamboo pen — with natural dyes.

Radha Bai

Shibori & Madhubani Fusion · 12 years

Radha pioneered a beautiful fusion — resist-dyeing the silk with Shibori techniques before hand-painting Madhubani motifs over the dyed ground. Each piece a world unto itself.

How We Work

Our Promise

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Every piece is hand-painted to order in the Madhubani district of Bihar — no digital prints, no block stamping, no mechanised reproduction. Natural pigments, traditional brushes, generations of skill.

Authentic Hand-Painting

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The artisan who painted your saree is named on a certificate of provenance that ships with every piece. We pay her a fair, transparent share of the price — and we tell her story.

Named Artisans, Fair Share

From the Soil of Mithila