Nepal History

It is believed that the Kathmandu Valley was at one time a large lake. One story says that Manjushri cut the walls of the valley with a mystical sword and the water flowed out. Hindus say that the valley was cut by a thunderbolt thrown by Lord Krishna and that the water flowed out through the Chobar Gorge.

The first recorded history of Nepal dates from the 7th or 8th centuries BC to the Kiratis, who are Mongoloids, who are believed to have come to Nepal from the east. They are believed to be the first rulers of Nepal. Yalambar, on the kings of Nepal, is mentioned in the Mahabharata.

It is believed that Buddha came to the Kathmandu Valley during the rule of the seventh of the 28 Kirati rulers. He came with his disciple Ananda and stayed for a while in Patan.

Emperor Ashoka from India put up a pillar at Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha in the 2nd century BC. It is also believed that Ashoka went to Patan and had four stupas built there. It is believed that his daughter Charumati established the village of Chabahil, which is located between Kathmandu and Bodhnath. There is a stupa and monastery in Chabahil that are said to date back to her time.

The Kiratis lost power around 300 AD. The Limbu and Rai people from east Nepal are believed to be their descendants. Around 300 AD the Licchavis, who were based in North India invaded Nepal and overthrew the Kiratis. During this period Hinduism became the main religion in Nepal over Buddhism. Manadeva I expanded the rule of Licchavis. There is an inscription by him dated to 476 AD that tells of his glories at the Changu Narayan Temple, which is on the east side of Kathmandu Valley. His son Manadeva put stone inscriptions around the Kathmandu Valley.

The first Thakuri king was Amsuvarman who started to rule in 602 AD. He succeeded his father-in-law, who was a Kichhavi. He expanded the kingdom in the north and south directions. He built an impressive seven story palace at Deopatan, which is located near Pashupatinath. His daughter Bhrikuit got married to a Tibetan prince. She received the begging bowl of the Buddhua as part of her wedding dowry. It is believed that she is a reincarnation of the Green Tara of Tibetan Buddhism, who is seen in many thangkas. A thangka is a Tibetan painting on cloth.
The Thakuris ruled for around the next 600 years. It is said that the present city of Kathmandu was founded by Guna Kamadeva in the 10th century.
It is said that in 1200 that King Arideva was wrestling when he was told his son was born. He then gave his son the title malla, which means wrestler and the Malla dynasty was formed. During their rule the valley was wealthy. Many of the building found in Kathmandu Valley were built during their rule. During this time there was a giant earthquake in which thousands of people were killed.

Patan was invaded and destroyed in 1311.

Mallas
The Mallas were Hindus, but tolerated other religions. One of the main Malla rulers was Hari Singh who came to the valley around 1330. During this time Nepal became many individual state who often fought between each other. In the 14th century the Muslim invaded Nepal and destroyed many Hindu and Buddhist temples. Also Hindus fled from the plains of India to the hills of Nepal and established individual kingdoms. During this time there were over 40 individual kingdoms in Nepal. They maintained their own armies and minted money.

In Kathmandu Valley there were three main kingdoms in Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur. In 1372

Jayasthiti Malla took over Patan and ten years later took over Bhaktapur, bringing the entire valley under his control.

Under the rule of Yaksha Malla (1428-82) Nepal borders went from west to the Kali Gandaki River and east to Sikkim, and from Tibet in the north to the Ganges Rive in the south. After he died the kingdom divided against to separate states.

Kathmandu Malla Kings
Ratna Malla 1482-1528
Mahendra Malla 1560-1574
Sadasiva Malla 1574-1583
Siva Singh Malla 1578-1620
Pratap Malla 1641-1674
Prithvibendra Malla 1680-1687
Bhaskara Malla 1687-1714
Jagat Jaya Malla 1722-1736
Jaya Prakash Malla 1736-1768

Patan Malla Kings
Jayasthiti Malla 1372-1395
Siddhinarsingh Malla 1620-1661
Srinivasa Malla 1661-1684
Yoganarendra Malla 1684-1705
Vishnu Malla 1729-1745
Rajya Prakash Malla 1745-1758
Visvajita Malla 1758-1760

Bhaktapur Malla Kings
Yaksha Malla 1428-1482
Raya Malla 1482-1505
Eksha Mal Malla 1505-1568
Jagat Jyoti Malla 1613-1637
Jagat Prakash Malla 1644-1673
Jitamitra Malla 1673-1696
Bhupatindra Malla 1696-1722
Jaya Ranjit Malla 1722-1769

Shah’s Dynasty
In 1768 Prithvi Narayan Shah, the 9th Shah King, conquered the Kathmandu Valley and united much of Nepal. He was from the small kingdom of Gorkha, located halfway between Pokhara and Kathmandu. For the next 20 years the kingdom expanded until the Nepalis were defeated by the Chinese army in Tibet. They had to stop doing raids in Tibet and had to pay tribute to the Chinese.

By the beginning of the 19th century Nepal had expanded to reach from Kashmir in the west to Sikkim in the east. By 1810, Nepal was approximately twice its size. Nepal got into a war with the British over the Terai, the lowland located south of the Himalaya Mountains at the border of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The war ended with the signing of the 1816 Sugauli Treaty, in which Nepal lost Sikkim and most of the Terai. Most of the present borders of Nepal were established at this time.

Nepal was around twice its size in 1810. It was reduced in size in 1816 by the Sugauli Treaty with the British. Nepal lost Sikkim and most of their territory in the Terai. Also their present western and eastern borders were set. Some of the lost land was given back to Nepal by the British, in return for their support during the Indian Upraising (War of Independence) in 1958.

A British resident came to Nepal. After 1816 Nepal shut its borders to foreigners until 1951. The British residents were the only foreigners to enter Kathmandu Valley in over 100 years. After fighting with the Nepalis, the British were so impressed with them that they recruited them into their armies and formed the famous Gurkha regiments.

Ranas
Jung Bahadur was a nobleman from western Nepal. On 15 September 1846 he organized to have hundreds of the main leaders in the kingdom of the nobleman and soldiers killed in the Kot courtyard next to Durbar Square in Kathmandu. It is referred to as the Kot Massacre. He then made himself the Prime Minister and took the title Rana. He then gave himself the title maharaja and made the position hereditary. His family became the real rulers of Nepal and the Shah family became basically figureheads.

For the next century the Ranas held the real power in Nepal. During this time Nepal remained independent of foreign rule, while most of its neighbors fell under colonial rule. During this period virtually no Europeans were allowed to enter Nepal, and even those that entered were highly restricted where they could go. During the rule of the Ranas slave labor was ended. A college was established in Kathmandu.

After WWII there were many changes within the countries on the border of Nepal. There was a revolution in China. The People’s Republic of China invaded Tibet and thousands of Tibetans started to fled to Nepal. India became independent.

The Nepali Congress Party was formed headed by BP Koirala. Even some of the Rana family became its members. It was supported by the Indian Congress Party.

Shah’s to Power
In 1950 the King Tribhuvan got to the Indian Embassy and from there went to India. Men under BP Koirala took over a good part of the Terai and governed from Birganj. India helped negotiate a change in government, in which King Tribhuvan formed a new government which was made up of BP Koirala’s Nepali Congress and the Ranas. Nepal then gradually opened up Nepal to other countries.

King Tribhuvan died in 1955 and was succeeded by his son Mahendra. Under a new constitution a democratic parliamentary system was established. The first election was held in 1959. The Nepali Congress Party won a good majority and BP Koirala became the Prime Minister. In late 1969 the king did not like the way things were being run and had the cabinet arrested. The king took total control and political parties were banned.
In 1962 King Mahendra established a panchayat system in which local councils (panchayats) picked representatives to a district panchayat, who then chose the 35 member National Panchayat. The king still had complete power. He would choose 16 members of the National Panchayat, and chose the Prime Minister and his cabinet.

After Mahendra died in 1972 his son Birendra became king. He had been educated at Harvard and Eton. Much of the public was dissatisfied with the corrupt government official and lack of economic advancement. In 1979 after there were violent riots, the king allowed a referendum to choose between political parties and the panchayat system. BP Koirala was allowed to take part in the election. He had been under arrest since 1960. The 1980 referendum went 55% to 45% in favor of the panchayat system.

The king allowed an election in which the people would elect the legislative body for a five-year term, which would then elect a Prime Minister. The king still appointed 20% of the legislature. All candidates had to be members of one of six of the government-allowed political parties and they had to vote under their own name and not under the political party.

Different freedoms were authorized, but in truth there were still many restrictions. Opposition of the government was restricted and members of the main Nepali Congress party between 1960 and 1990. BP Koirala died in 1983. The king basically maintained a high deal of control, and the National Panchayat had a rubber stamp position. The noble class had the power and money. The king and his brothers were married to Ranas.

Present Times (Democracy)
In 1989 the opposition parties pushed for a multi-party democratically elected Parliament with a constitutional monarchy. This opposition was known as the People’s Movement or Jana Andolan. They were supported by an economical blockage by India. People were unhappy about government corruption. In February 1990, the government arrested thousand of protested against the government. Protestor were tortures, teared gased and shot at. It is believed that 300 people were killed.

Because of the general unrest, and pressure from foreign country who gave money to Nepal, finally the government had to chance their position. On 9 April the king stopped the ban on political parties and agreed to accept a constitutional monarchy.

An election was held in May 1991 in which 20 parties contested for 205 seats in Parliament. The Nepali Congress Party won 100 seats (37.75%) and the Nepal-Unified Marxist-Leninist (CPN-UML) won 69 seats (28%). The United People’s Front received the next largest amount of votes with 4.83% of the votes.

In the next couple years things didn’t do very good economically. During a general strike in April 1992 there was ruining a several people were killed.

The Nepali Congress government called for an election in late 1994 in which no party got a clear majority. The communist CPN-UML party formed a coalition with the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP, the old panchyats), supported by the Nepali Congress party. This is one of the few times that a communist government was elected by the public.
Within nine months the Congress party withdrew its support and the Congress party formed a new government with the support of the RPP. In the 1990s the government changed a lot, four times in 1998 alone. During the election in May 1999 the Nepali Congress party got a clear majority for the first time.

Copyright ©2001 John Howley and Spiritual Guides