मैथिली साहित्यक इतिहास दय
Maithili has had a rich tradition of poetry and drama – especially the devotional poetry. The tradition of poetry that is possible to be rendered into songs -evidenced in the lyrics of bhajans or various forms of songs – was firmly established by the great Maithili poets of earlier centuries including Vidyapati, Umapati, Govinda das, Mahesh Thakur, Chaturbhuj, Lochana, the Malla kings (Jagajjiyotimalla), Yoganarendramalla, Jagatprakashamalla, Bhupatindramalla, or Ranjit Malla and Chanda Jha continued further in the modern era. By then the immortal songs of the poets of yester-years had entered into repertoire of daily life of the common man and woman – educated or illiterate. This surely was the taste of power of their pen. The ‘Maithili Chrestomathy’ (1882) of George Grierson or his ’21 Vaishnava Hymes’ (1884) as well as two other collections published in the ’20s – Bhola Jha’s compilation: “Maithilaa-giita-sangrah” in 4 parts (1917) and Laliteshwarasimha’s edited collections “Maithila bhaktaprakaasha” (1920), all prove this point once again that the written literature was indeed finding their way into oral traditions. The tradition was continued by the later lyrical poets of Mithili in the ’30s and ’40s, and even beyond the ’60s.