Anglo-Gurkha War Memorial, Kalunga

Anglo-Gurkha War 1814-16 ended not in the battlefield but when the Gurkhas agreed to sign the Treaty of Perpetual Peace and Friendship, known as the Treaty of Sagauli dated March 04, 1816. Affected historians have stated that the Gurkhas capitulated but the Treaty of Sagauli makes it more than clear otherwise; to emphasize their genuineness of desire to establish friendship the Brits even agreed to indemnify …

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Relief of Lucknow by the Gurkhas

Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 had found the Brits totally unprepared to resolve the issue, so Lord Canning, the Governor General of India sought help from Nepal. The Gurkhas, personally led by Prime Minister Jungbahadur Rana Magar descended into the plains from their mountain base and soon wrested from the mutineers control over Lucknow which virtually ended the mutiny. The mutineers who had invested their best to …

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Red Jacket Gurkhas – 1850-1904

In 1849, nearly a decade before the Sepoy Mutiny, now known as The First War of Independence, a battalion of Native Infantry had mutinied and seized Fort Govindgarh. A large quantity of weapons and ammunition now at the disposal of the mutineers was alarming enough but it was over shadowed by even greater possibility of other regiments joining them. This scary prospect had made the British …

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Dhyani Buddha: Indonesia

In Buddhist Cosmology, according to the Nepalese tradition, Swayambhunath or the Self Existing Lord, also known as Adi Buddha has never left his heavenly abode. And neither the Five Buddhas of Eternal Meditation or Pancha Dhyani Buddha, as they are known to the Nepalese believers. However, except their names, the colour of their aura and the cardinal direction they face when represented in a temple, we …

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Tortoise Awatar (Avatar)

Significantly Kurmi (Tortoise) Awatar (Avatar) was one of the ten incarnations of Bisnu (Visnu). Once upon a mythical time, according to the Hindu tradition, gods in heaven decided to churn the cosmic ocean to extract divine blessings hidden in the abyss. They decided to employ Mount Kailash as the churning paddle and Basuki Nag, the Serpent god as the rope and god Bisnu (Visnu) volunteered to …

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Who Are Kirati Mongolians?

Many tribes, who are inhabitants of the Eastern Nepalese Highlands, namely Sunwars, Khambus or Rais. Yakkhas or Dewans. Yakthumbas or Limbus, Rongpas or Lepchas etc identify themselves as Kiratis. Koches, Meches, Kacharis, Tripuris and Bodo tribes from the adjacent territories of neighbouring India too claim to be Kirati and one common denominator in their claim is that they all are distinctly Mongolians. Ancient Hindu literature mentions …

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Gita, the First Ever Sanskrit Manuscript

Tradition has it that Hindu priests in the centuries past committed to memory their entire scriptures and passed them down orally only to the chosen few. This peculiar custom, the brahmins explain was the proven method of ensuring that their sacred literature did not fall into undesired hands. This is also the explanation why there is no tradition of writing mentioned in the vedic literature. However, …

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Barah (Varah) or Pig Awatar (Avatar)

Hindus the world over believe their supreme god Bisnu (Visnu) revealed himself to this world in ten different awatar (avatar), nine of which have already been manifested in the days gone by while the tenth is yet awaited, viz, 1.Ram Awatar, 2. Krishna (spelt also as Krushna or Krsna) Awatar, 3. Nar-Singh Awatar (Lion-Man god), 4. Matsya Awatar (Fish god), 5. Kurmi Awatar (Tortoise god), 6. …

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Buddha visits Swayambhunath.

Siddhartha Gaut’m (566 – 486 B.C.), who became the Buddha, was a Kirati-Mongolian Prince of mid-western Nepal, son of King Suddhodhan and Queen Mayadebi. I shall not spend any more time than is absolutely necessary to narrate his history except the chapter which the historians have neglected to record for one reason or the other. In the days of the Buddha, it was neither necessary nor …

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Caste System and the Kiratis

It is not easy to define and even harder to understand what Caste System really means. While it is a very complex social code it also is unwritten law of the Hindu Religion based entirely upon tradition and supported by various orthodox books held by Brahmin priests. Entire Hindu Society, or the Brahminic Society has divided human-kind into four categories; namely the Brahmins, the Kshattriyas, the …

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Lal Mohur or Red Seal

Adulations to the Lord of the Hills, God in the Image of Human, Celebrated among Men, King of Kings, Prithiwi Narayan Sah Bahadur Shamsher Jung, Victorious in battles in the name of gods; to the Honorable and Capable of shouldering Royal Responsibilities Sri Soon Rai, Sri Kum Rai, Sri Jung Rai and all the rest of the Limbu Rai Community is this epistle addressed. Henceforth, we …

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Brahmins in Nepal

“If Brahmins kept strictly to the letter of the rules of their caste, they would live in isolated places far from the haunts of men, where their whole lives would be spent in religious exercises…. But the poverty of many of their number and the avarice and ambition which are the ruling passions of each and all, preclude the possibility of such a philosophical mode of …

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Brian Hodgson, the Maverick Scholar

Brian Hodgson was a maverick of a gentleman. In 1819, while still a teenager, he was posted as a Post Master and Assistant to the Resident in Kathmandu, Nepal. He had had only four years of formal education upon which he had added a year of training at the East India Company College at Herfordshire, learning the basic trade of a writer. With that background he …

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Xuan Zang in Kathmandu

Petra Cave Monastery lay on the main Silk Road Highway where Chinese caravans on their way to or returning from the main markets of the day would spend their time on and off. The message the monk missionaries were giving out at the Petra Monastery greatly appealed to them and they in turn encouraged some of the monks to make the long journey back to mainland …

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Guru Padmasambhawa

Earlier in this website we have read about how Princess Bhrikuti of Nepal had converted her heathen husband, King Srong-Tsen Gampo into Buddhism in or around 642 A.D. For a century, except for the royal household and a few faithful retainers had remained an isolated island of hope in Tibet, until King Ti-Son Detsen ascended the throne in 745 A.D. King Detsen was a noble King, …

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Holiest of Tibetan Temple

Princess Bhrikuti had brought along a gilded icon of the Buddha as a part of her dower and was accompanied by artisans and craftsmen with a royal mandate to build a suitable temple to house the icon. Until then there were no temple of any sort for the Tibetans practiced Bon which required no permanent structure, they worshipped primarily to ward off evil spirits, out in …

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Princess Bhrikuti, the Tibetan Goddess

According to the Nepalese tradition, King Srong Tsen Gampo (pronounced Srong-zen) was a powerful monarch of Tibet and apparently had exerted good deal of influence in either direction of his kingdom. The Tibetan potentate was married to Princess Bhrikuti, daughter of Angsuburma, the Kirati King of Kathmandu as well as Weng Chen, Chinese Princess of T’ang Dynasty of China. In those far off days, before the …

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The Buddha as Apollo

After conquering all the known world of his time, Emperor Ashok had chosen to be the champion of faith to spread the gospel of Four Noble Truths. Consequently he not only demobilized his army but converted them rank and file to a monastic order and gave them instructions to carry the message sans frontiers throughout the world. The accounts of his monk missionaries through South East …

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Bi-lingual Edict of Ashok

As has been said earlier, Ashok had demobilized his army and turned them into monk missionaries to carry the gospel of Four Noble Truths and they moved about precisely in that orderly and disciplined manner. It was the serendipity of this step that made the monk missionaries so successful in their mission. The monk missionaries who went East and found vast empty lands, they encouraged the …

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Buddhist Monastery at Petra, Jordan

The year 1812 was a momentous year in our study of the discovery of ancient linkage between Buddhism and the Western World; in that year, an intrepid Swiss archaeologist named Johann Ludwig Burckhardt had stumbled upon the ancient ruins of a flourishing human habitation in the middle of Jordanian Desert. The ruins of a city carved out of rockface quickly got christened as Petra, from Greek …

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