Janakpur has become a great piligrimage site for Hindus today. The most sacred sites are the Janaki Mandir, dedicated to goddess Sita, the Ram Sita bibaha(marriage) mandir, built over the spot where Ram and Sita were said to be married, Ram Mandir, dedicated to god Ram and the holy pond Dhanush Sagar. Hundreds of Indian devotees come here every year to pay their respect to the goddess at this temple.Named after the legendary King Janak, Janakpur was the capital of the ancient Indian Kingdom Mithila, the native country of goddess Sita, the wife of the Hindu god Rama and the heroine of the great Hindu epic Ramayana. Today Janakpur stands as the most cleanest and interesting place among all the towns of Terai.Besides the religious importance, Janakpur is also the center for the revival of the ancient Mithila art and craft. As a tradition, Mithila women have always been decorating the walls of their houses with paintings depicting figures from Hindu mythology in abstract forms, sometimes resembling a mandala. Janakpur has been a centre for Hindu pilgrimages since at least the 4th century BC, when the story of Sita, wife of Rama and daughter of King Janak of Mithila, was written down in the Ramayana. Even today, the town feels closer to the Hindu towns of India then the tribal townships of Nepal there's nowhere better to get a real feel for life in the plains.On one level, Janakpur is a tourist town, but almost all the tourists are pilgrims from India. The streets are dotted with pilgrims' hostels and the huge Janaki temple attracts pilgrims from across the subcontinent. The best time to visit is during the Hindu festival of Sita Bibaha Panchami (see p000, when vignettes from the Ramayana are acted out in the streets, bringing the ancient myth vividly to life.
The other lure in Janakpur is Mithila culture. Janakpur was once the capital of the ancient kingdom of Mithila, a territory now divided between Nepal and India, and more than two million people in the area still speak Maithili as their native tongue. The people of Mithila are famous for their wildly colourful paintings. Mithila art is primitive, in the Fine Art sense, and it offers a fascinating window onto rural life in the Terai - see the boxed text p000.
Janakpur is actually the third city on this site. The city mythologised in the Ramayana existed around 700 BC, but it was later abandoned and sank back into the forest. Simaraungarh grew up in its place, but this city was also destroyed, this time by Muslim invaders in the 14th century. Modern Janakpur is a busy, bustling bazaar town, with winding narrow streets, more rickshaws and bicycles than cars and a real sense of energy and purpose. Many people visit on the way to/from Kakarbhitta and you can make a fascinating detour south to the Indian border (though not across it) on the old metre-gauge train to Jaynagar
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