Thakur

The Thakur family were Srotriya Maithil Brahmins of Mithila, better known as the Oiniwar or Sugauna dynasty. The scholar Nath Thakur served the Karnat kings and was granted Oini, from which the house took its name. When the Karnat kingdom collapsed under the Delhi invasion of 1324, its former chief priest Kameshwar Thakur succeeded to the rule of Mithila in 1325.

The dynasty moved its court between villages of the Darbhanga country and patronised Maithili letters; the poet Vidyapati served seven of its kings and two queens and composed his Kirtilata for King Kirtisimha.

The last ruler, Laxminath Singh Deva, was assassinated by Nusrat Shah of Bengal, and in 1526 Oiniwar rule gave way to decades of strife from which the Raj Darbhanga house emerged.