Girija Sthan, Phulhar

The garden temple where, by the Ramayana, Rama and Sita first set eyes on each other.

Girija Sthan, where Ram met Sita
Wikimedia Commons · Sntshkumar750 · CC-BY-SA-4.0

At Phulhar, near the Nepal border, stands the Girija Sthan — the temple of the goddess Girija (Parvati) where, in the Ramayana, Sita came each day to worship and first beheld Rama as he gathered flowers in the royal garden of Pushpavatika. A sacred pond and the Pratham Milan (first meeting) shrine mark the spot.

A station on the Mithila Madhya Parikrama, Phulhar is one of the tender, intimate sites of Sita’s story, drawing pilgrims who retrace the geography of the epic.

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