Nepali politics and the rise of Jang Bahadur Rana, 1830-1857.

John Whelpton

Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of P h ilosophy in the D e p artment of H i s t o r y

,

F ebru a r y 1987

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The thesis examines the political history of Nepal from 1830, covering the decline and fall of B himsen Thapa, the factional struggles

$

which ended w i t h Jang Bahadur Kunwar (later Rana)'s emergence as premier in 1846, and J a n g 1s final securing of his own p osition w h e n h e assumed

the joint roles of pri m e mini s t e r and

maharaja

bharadar'i) ,

M i s h r a s , Pandes and Paudyals wh o p r o v i d e d the

rajgurus

Special attention is also p a i d to the role of the B ritish Residency in internal politics and to rank-and-file protest in the army, which although

largely m a n i p u l a t e d b y elite patrons showed signs of p o t e ntial autonomy.

Jang's assumption of pow e r is discussed in detail, emphasising the

importance of his alliance w i t h

guru

maharaja

maharajadhtraj)

bharadar'i

system, the significance of the

Mutukt A'in

natural continuation of lines already emerging, b u t h e nevertheless made significant changes leading to a m o r e centralised administration, the

growth of a sense of national identity, and the shift towards

de facto

secular functions of the king transferred to the

maharaja.

3

regime was 'autocratic* b ut he acknowledged in p r i n c i p l e an obligation to the governed, and h a d in p ractice to conciliate k ey sectors of the public, limitations w h i c h correspond to those recognised in classical Hindu political theory. Appendices give details of Jang's family history and translations of letters w r itten b y h i m from Paris in 1850.

Page

AB S T R A C T 2

AC K N O WLEDGEMENTS 6

ABBREVIATIONS 8

L IST OF TABLES 9

C H APTER ONE : KING A N D STATE IN PRE-RANA NEPAL 10

The K i n g d o m of Nepal 10

Kingship as a Religious Institution 21

The Milit a r y Factor 28

La n d and Central Control 30

The 'Bearers of the Burden' 37

State, Caste and Nation 45

Notes to Chapter One 50

CHAPTER TWO : THE FALL OF BHI M S E N THAPA : 1830-1838 59

Introduction 59

The Political Stage in 1830 60

The Campa i g n against Bhimsen and the 6 8

Emergence of Ranjang (1837-8)

B h i m s e n 1s Fall in Retrospect 99

Notes to Chapter Two 103

CHAPTER THREE : THE R OAD TO THE 'BRITISH MINISTRY' 110

Introduction 110

The

Bhavadavi-

Crisis and Intervention 124

Notes to Chapter Three 153

CHAPTER F OUR : F R O M THE 'BRITISH M I N I S T R Y1 TO THE DEATH 162 OF M A T H B A R SINGH THAPA

Introduction 162

Politics under the 'British Ministry' 163

The Emergence of Surendra 171

The 'National M o v e m e n t1 186

Mathbar Singh Thapa 198

1840-1845 : Political Trends in R e t r o s p e c t 235

Notes to Chapter Four 237

5

Page C H APTER FIVE : JANG B A HADUR TAKES POW E R : 1845-7 254

Introduction 254

Politics after Mat h b a r 254

The K ot Massacre 265

The Bhandarkhal Affair 279

Rajendra's Withdrawal and Deposition 284

Notes to Chapter Five 301

CHAPTER SIX : THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE RANA REGIME : 1846-57 311

Introduction 311

The Establishment of the Maharajship 312

Relations with the

Bhavadavi

The A rmy 344

The M a c h inery of Government 353

The

Muluki Ain

Revenue Policy 364

The B r itish C o n nection 380

Conclusion: Continuity and Change und e r 387 Jang Bahadur

Notes to Chapter Six 390

CONCLUSION : NEPAL A N D HINDU POLITY 402

Notes to Conclusion 414

A PPENDIX 1 Jang Bahadur's F a mily 417

APPENDIX 2 Letters of Jang Bahadur w r itten from Europe 420

APPENDIX 3 F a m i l y Trees 427

M AP Nepal in 1850 4 3 4

BIBLIOGRAPHY 435

individually a few whose contributions were part i c u l a r l y important, Abhi Subedi first drew m y interest to Jang Bahadur, and he and his

family allowed me to share their home and provi d e d constant help and

e ncouragement during fieldwork in Kathmandu in 1982/3, Madhusudan - Thakur and other members of the Thakur family similarly m a d e m y travels in India during the same y ear m uch easier and more prof i t a b l e than they w o u l d otherwise h a v e been.

D r s . K r i s h n a K ant Adhikari, Triratna Manandhar and Rukhmini Rana

g enerously gave m e access to some of the results of their own archival

work. Amo n g others who p r o v i d e d valuable advice and information in Kathmandu were Kamal Mani Dixit, M o h a n Prasad Khanal, Jean-Claude Marize, Dinesh Raj Pant, Rishikesh Shaha and Chaitanya Upadhyaya.

The descendants of m a n y of the characters appearing in the following pages were able to supplement the w r i t t e n record w i t h their own family

t r a d i t i o n s . Their contribution is acknowledged in the f o o t n o t e s , but I am p a r t i cularly grateful to Pradyumna Rana, g r e at-grandson of Jang Bahadur, w ho also p r o v i d e d me w i t h a base during m y stay at Allahabad.

I was affiliated in Nepal to the Research Centre for Nepal and

Asian Studies (CNAS), T r i b huvan University, and in India to the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and am grateful

to the staff of these as well as of the libraries and archives I consulted.

B ala R a m D a n g o l , Director of the National Archives of N e p a l , and Nirmal Tuladhar of CNAS w ere especially h e l p f u l .

7

I b e n e fited greatly from the advice and support of staff (both

academic and non-academic) and fellow-students at SOAS. I am particularly grateful to Dr. R i chard Burghart, and above all to m y supervisor,

Professor Ballhatchet. The strongest sections of the thesis are those most substantially m o d i f i e d in the light of the latter's comments, though responsibility for the remaining faults is, of course, m i n e alone.

DO Demi-official

FP For e i g n Political Proceeding/Consultation

FS Fo r e i g n Secret Proceeding/Consultation

HP

IOL(R) India Office L ibrary (and Records)

JA

Jang-i Adda

K KA Krishna K a n t Adhikari

KKK

Kamyandari- Kitabkhana KM The Kot Massacre

NAI Natio n a l Archives of India

NAN Natio n a l A rchives of Nepal N R Nepal R e s i dency Records RAS Royal Asiatic Society

VS Vi k r a m Sambat

9

L I S T OF TABLES

Page

TABLE I TABLE II TABLE III

TABLE IV

The Caste Hierarchy of the

Mutuki Ain

(kampu)

Thav

Kampu

18

127 330

347

The Kin g d o m of Nepal

The integration of the former 'Princely States' into independent India and Pakistan extinguished Hindu mona r c h y as a living political

form throughout almost all of South Asia. One sole exemplar survived, however, in the H i m alayan kin g d o m of Nepal, whi c h had never been brought

into the British Indian empire. The country today is still officially

styled a Hindu kingdom, and the present king is the tenth-generation descendant of Prithvi N arayan Shah, whose conquest of the Kathmandu Valley in 1769 m a r k e d the beginning of Nepal's h i story as a unified

state. Nowadays, as in Prithvi's time, it is in the royal palace

that power p r i n c i p a l l y resides. Over much of the intervening p e riod effective power was h e l d b y a m inister ruling in the king's name.

Jang Bahadur Kunw a r {later Rana) attained this post in 1846 and succeeded in maki n g it the h e r e d i t a r y p o s session of his family. F r o m 1857 onwards

Jang and his successors combined the titles of M a h a r a j a and Prime Minister, and the Rana family continued to rule the country until the

'revolution' of 1950/51 p u t the reins back into the hands of the Shah dynasty. T h r o u g h o u t the Rana ascendancy the royal family nevertheless

retained their formal superiority, keeping the title of Maharajadhiraj

in an arrangement p a r a l l e l e d in a number of Hindu states, m o s t notably

in the Ma r a t h a

svavajya

following Jang Bahadur's assumption of power, looking at the relationship between the c o nstituent elements of the state in comparison w i t h the

pattern elsewhere in the subcontinent and w ith the model of Hindu polity

1 i

found in the canonical texts. The principal focus will be on kingship

itself, and on the p r o b l e m of m a i n t aining central control over an

e xtended territory. The p resent chapter will outline the structure of the state as it ha d evolved by 1830 and consider the chief actors on the political stage. Chapters Two to Five will p r e s e n t a detailed,

chronological account of events from 1830 to 1847, w hen the deposition

of King Rajendra m a r k e d the consolidation of Jang's power, and Chapter Six will look more thematically at the nature of the new regime, as well as covering the pri n c i p a l political events down to 1857. The concluding

chapter returns to some of the general issues raised in the first, seeing h o w the characteristics of Nepal as a Hin d u m o n a r c h y were

continued or m o d i f i e d under Jang's predominance.

The idea that Nepal is to some extent a m i c r o c o s m of the whole

subcontinent was e n c a psulated at the beginning of this century in

Sylvain Levi's famous dictum, 'Le N^pal est l'Inde qui se fait'. 1 The

progressive H i n d u i s a t i o n of an ethnically and culturally diverse

population by the domin a n t I n d o - N e p a l e s e , and the conflicting trends

towards amalgamation and disintegration of smaller po l i t i c a l units within the H i m a layan foothills can both aid our u n d e rstanding of what happ e n e d on a larger scale throughout South A sia generally. There is

the crucial dist i n g u i s h i n g feature in the Nepali case that unity ~ and

independence - have been m a intained throughout the m o d e r n period, but

this in itself raises the interesting issue of h o w far a different outcome r esulted from the geographical factors of smaller size and peripheral location, and h o w far from superior political skill. Recent work on

South Asian po l i t i c a l systems has tended to downgrade the notion of a

a model of ritual authority more or less voluntarily accepted or of empire itself e merging from the shifting pattern of alliances between local lords of the land. 2 It is not impossible to d e tect traces of

both these patterns w i thin the Nepali microcosm, but we have to reckon

w ith central control w h i c h proved itself solid and durable, and it will

be seen that some of the more traditional ways of looking at Indian empires fit the N e pali data better than those for w h i c h they were

originally devised. This emerges p a rticularly strongly in the question of land ownership w h i c h will be taken up shortly.

Despite such p o t e n t i a l l y illuminating parallels and contrasts, Nepali history has tended to remain a relatively isolated study, not

forming part of the main current of South Asi a n historiography, although anthropologists adopt i n g an historical perspective have made useful

attempts to fit Nepal into the wid e r framework of Hindu polity, most

significant bei n g the w ork of Richard Burghart on the relationship between Hindu ascetics and the state, and that of An dras HOfer on the

3

codification of the caste hierarchy in the 1854 Legal Code. Amongst historians in the stricter sense considerable attention has been given

to Nepal's relations w i t h British India and w i t h China and Tibet, w h ilst scholars w r iting in Nepali have concentrated on straightforward narrative

history and on the public a t i o n of indigenous mater i a l to supplement the British records whi c h remain the most important source for political events after the establishment of the British Residency in 1816. 4 For

economic life, and in p a r ticular the land tenure system, there is the indispensable work of M a h e s h Chandra Regmi, based almo s t entirely on

1 3

Nepal government records. Ludwig Stiller's studies of the unification

process and of the twenty years following the 1814-16 war w i t h British I n d i a , h i g hlight the inter-relationship between land, army and royal authority which will be developed further here, w h i l s t his publication

of many of the k ey Bri t i s h documents for the p e r i o d 1840-1847 has

greatly eased the task of future h i s t o r i a n s . Valua b l e work on the institutions of Nepal under Jang Bahadur has been p r o d u c e d b y Kumar and Adhikari, w h i l s t Edwards has highlighted the existence of both

'traditional' and ' m o d e r n1 elements in the Rana bureaucracy. Jain has

analysed Jang's rise and early years in a b ook which is m a r r e d by

eccentric and dogmatic judgments, but which does have the m e r i t of trying to look critically at the sources. The analysis offered be l o w relies on all of these writers, w h ilst seeking to pro v i d e a fuller

account of the factional politics of the 1830s and to fit Nepali

developments into a w i d e r South Asian pattern.^

W i t h the e x c e ption of the relatively small area whi c h was to be

ceded to her in 1860 in return for assistance in suppressing the Sepoy Revolt, Nepal's borders in 1830 were as they remain today. Stretching

for some 520 mil e s along the southern flank of the Himalayas, the

k ingdom decends in uneven steps from the snow-covered p e a k s to the

Gangetic plain. The northern b o rder in its eastern section actually follows the crest line, w h ilst further w est it runs slightly to the north of the main Hi m a l a y a n range, taking in the southern fringe of the arid

T ibetan plateau. South of the mountains are 'the hills' (

pahad

political as well as the geographic heart of the country. The limit of

this region is m a r k e d ’ by the Mahabharat r a n g e , b e y o n d

which

valleys of the 'inner T a r a i ' , and then the low Siwalik or Chure hills,

last b a rrier before the plains. Nepali territory generally extends into the low country a depth of b e t w e e n ten and thir t y m i l e s , Until two decades ago the p r evalence of a particularly v i r u l e n t form of malaria

rendered this region — the Tarai p r oper — uninhabitable through much of the year to all b u t the local tribesmen who had acqui r e d some degree of

immunity. However, where the jungle had b een cleared the land was w ork e d during the cold season, generally by peasants b r o u g h t in from

India, and the fertile soil made the region vital to the Nepali economy as it still is today.

Vir t u a l l y the whole of Nepal falls within the catchment area of three

g reat river systems — the Karnali in the west, the Gandaki in the centre, and the Kosi in the east, each with its many d i f f erent branc h e s and

tributaries. F r o m their sources in Tibet they flow through deep gorges across the line of the H i m a l a y s , then traverse the hills and plain to merge eventually w i t h the G a n g e s . Within the hills t h e y shape the agricultural pattern, the valley floors pro v i d i n g good r ice-growing land, whilst the slopes above m ust be used for 'dry' crops such as maize.

Until the B ritish m a n a g e d to open an alternative route through

S ikkim towards the end of the last century, the passes t h rough the

Himalayas formed by the Trisuli (a branch of the Gandaki) and the Sunkosi rivers were maj o r routes for trade between India and Tibet. Situated in

the hills b etween the Gandaki and Kosi basins, the Nepal Valley, which gave its name to the whole country and which contains the capital, Kathmandu, was a natural h a l t i n g poi n t for traders trave l l i n g between

the plains and one or other of the passes. This commercial importance,

1 5

together w i t h the valley's great fertility, enabled its Newar inhabitants

to develop a complex urban civilisation. Outside the valley, however, the area o f their control was limited, both because the difficulties

of communication in the hills n a t urally favoured local autonomy, and b ecause from the fifteenth century onwards the Newars were themselves divided, Kathmandu and the n e i g h bouring towns of Pat a n and Bhaktapur each

forming the capital of its own little kingdom.

W i t h i n the hills unification of substantial parts of Nepal h ad been

achieved twice before Prithvi Narayan Shah: in the t h i rteenth and fourteenth centuries the 'Malla Empire' had covered the Karnali basin and large areas o f south-western Tibet, w h ilst the S en k i n g d o m established

in the early sixteenth century bri e f l y united the southern hills from Palpa eastwards.^ By the eighteenth century, however, this unity had long

b e e n lost. The

ba'is'i

who s e t e r r itory the Mallas h ad ha d their capital, b ut were in practice

completely independent. The Gandaki basin was d ivided amongst the

caub'is'L

kingdoms of Makwanpur, Bijaypur and Chaudandi, ruled b y branches of the

S en family, w h ilst m u c h of the hills was controlled b y non-Hinduised

Kiranti t r i b e s m e n .

P rithvi N arayan came to the throne of Gorkha in 1743 and embarked the following y ear o n the first of the military campaigns w h i c h were to

lead to the conquest of the Kathmandu Valley twenty-four years later.

The emergence of a unit e d Nepal thus took place at a time when Mughal

successor states w ere b e i n g consoligated in India, proper, piost n.otgbly b y drstwhile Mughal viceroys and by Sikhs and Margthas. 7 Nepal had

always b e e n b e y o n d the per i p h e r y of even the most tenuous Mughal

control, bu t the example of what others were a c h i eving as that control loosened m u s t have impressed Prithvi. He received no mili t a r y backing from Mughal sources or indeed f r o m anywhere outside the h i l l s , and this

total reliance on the resources of his o wn region set h i m apart from a ruler such as M artanda Varma, first king of united Travgncore, who also fought his w a y to supremacy over his fellow chieftains b u t who had

obtai n e d initial support f rom the Viceroy of the Carnatic a nd later g

employed m e rcenaries from the east coast. Prithvi did, however, follow

the p a ttern of applying u p dated milit a r y technology to local c o n f l i c t s ,

. . 9

o btaining firearms on a journey to Banaras. It is also significant that,

as will be seen below, he, and poss i b l y even his p r e d e cessors on the

G orkha throne, r egarded the Mughal emperor as a p o t ential source of l e g i t i m i s a t i o n .

In Nepal's case, the conquest of the Vall e y was only the beginning

of a p e r i o d of rap i d Gorkha expansion, whi c h carried the borders of the n e w k i n g d o m to the Tista in the east and the Satiej in the west. The

u ltimate prize of control of the Himalayan chain as far as Kashmir might w ell have b e e n attained had n o t an aggressive poli c y towards Tibet over

terms of trade and control of the border passes p r o v o k e d a punitive Chinese

invasion of Nep a l in 1792. Hostilities were concluded on terms which involved nominal Nepali submission but imposed no hards h i p on t hem other than the surrender of their recent Tibetan g a i n s . H o w e v e r , the withdrawal

of forces f rom the far w e s t in the face of the emergency halted the

m o m e n t u m of expansion, and w h e n the advance was r e sumed in the 1800s their

1 7

path was b l o c k e d b y R a njit Singh's k i n g d o m of the Panjab. A further

b l o w followed in 1814, when Nepal became involved w i t h the British over rival claims to the Tarai. Terms imposed after h er defeat in 1816 d eprived h er of Kumaon, Garhwal and the section of S i k k i m she h ad

p r e viously occupied, between t h e m comprising about o n e - t h i r d of her p r e-war territory.

E ven within Nepal's restricted boundaries the p o p u l a t i o n was a

complex a m a l g a m of h i g h l y diverse elements. The

Mutuki Ain

hierarchy, and this structure, w h i c h corresponds in b r o a d o u tline w ith social r e ality even today, is set out in simplified form in Table I (on following p a g e ) .

In pre-un i f i c a t i o n Gorkha, as in the other former statelets of the

Karnali and Gandaki basins, two principal elements could be identified:

the P a r b a t i y a s , or 1I n d o - N e p a l e s e 1 , divided into castes and speaking the

Indo-Aryan language kn o w n in the nineteenth century as

khas kura

Gurung tribesmen, o nly p a r t ially H i n duised and speaking Tibeto-Burman

languages. The m a i n divisions within the Indo-Nepalese caste system, as it h a d e volved in the eighteenth century were: Brahmans who claimed

to have come o r i ginally from the o ld imperial city of K a n yakubja (modern K a n a u j ) o n the G a n g e s ; T h a k u r i s , who included the r u ling dynasty of

Gorkha and o f the other hill principalities and who p r o c l a i m e d themselves the descendants of R a jput refugees from M u s l i m invaders on the plains;

K h a s , who were in the m a i n a continuation of the p e o p l e of that name who

had lived in the Himalayas since ancient times, and finally a number of occupational, untouchable castes. 11 The Indo-Nepalese h a d b r ought the

determined E = ethnic group

1. Caste group of the "Wearers of the holy cord" (

tagadhavZ

Rajput (Thakuri) ("warrior") Jaisi B r ahman

Chetri (Ksatri) ("warrior") D e w Bhaju (Newar Brahmans) E Indian Brahman

Ascetic sects (Bannyasi, etc.)

"lower" Jaisi

Various Newar castes *E

2 . Caste group of the "Non-enslavable Alcohol-drinkers" (

namas'Znya matwaZ'L)

Gurung *E Sunuwar *E

Some other N e w a r castes *E

3. Caste group of the "Enslavable Alcohol-drinkers"

(masinya matwaZ'L)

C e pang *E

Kumal * (potters) Hayu *E

Tharu *E

Gharti * (descendants of freed slaves)

4. Impure, but "touchable" castes

(pant nacatnya choi- ahttQ haZnunaparnya)

Kusle (Newar musicians) E

Hindu Dhobi (Newar washermen) E Kulu (Newar tanners) E

Musul m a n *

Ml e c c h * (European)

5. Untouchable castes

(pant nacaZnya ohoi ohito haZnupavnya

Kami (blacksmiths) ) ^

, . , . . , of equal status Sarkr (tanners, shoemakers )

Kadara (stemming from unions b e tween Kami and Sarki) Damai (tailors and musicians)

Gaine (minstrels) Badi (musicians)

Pore (Newar skinners and fishermen) E Cyame (Newar scavengers) E

1 9

Magars and Gurungs w i t h i n the caste framework b y granting t h e m a position b el o w the twice-born Khas but above the impure c a s t e s , corresponding with

the category of

sat

W i t h i n this who l e structure the Khas, who since J a n g B a h a d u r ’s time

have been o f f i c i a l l y known as Chetris (i.e.

ksatriyas)

east into Nepal, where they were the founders o f the 'Malla E m p i r e ’.

It was p r o b a b l y this strong political position w h i c h enabled t h e m to

secure integration with Brahmin and R a jput newcomers o n more favourable terms than their fellows w ho rema i n e d in Kumaon, whe r e the caste structure is b roadly similar to that of N e p a l . 13 Though b oth h i erarchies show a

clear opposition bet w e e n high-status immigrant and low-status K h a s , the degree of subordination is much less in Nepal than in India. Intermarriage

bet w e e n immigrant and Khas in Kumaon is infrequent a nd frowned upon, whereas in Nep a l it has been t o l erated for as far b a c k as we have any

knowledge, subject o nly to the normal rule of hypergamy. The offspring of unions b e tween Brahman m e n and Chetris women, or b e t w e e n either

Brahmin or Chetri males a nd Magar or Gurung f e m a l e s , are themselves regar d e d as c h e t r i s .- Before the eighteenth century some Magars may

have b e e n accepted into the Khas ranks on the strength o f cultural assimilation alone; this process w o u l d have been a r e plication of that b y which the origi n a l Khas h a d b een granted the right to wear the sacred

cord b y the

bai.S'i

caub'Ls'L

did take place, m a n y Brahman a nd Thakuri must have b e e n bas i c a l l y of Khas extraction.

The unific a t i o n of Nepal brought a number of n e w ethnic groups under

Gorkha rule, in p a r t i c u l a r the Newars o f the Kathmandu Vall e y and the Kiranti (Limbus and Rai) of the eastern hills. The Newars p o s s essed an

elaborate caste structure of their own and these d i f f erent castes were incorporated into the Indo-Nepalese scheme at different levels. The Kiranti came to be accepted into the same general cate g o r y as the Magars

and Gurungs — p u r e , but not twice-born — though the q uestion of their

status m a y not have b een consciously considered at first: unlike the we stern tribes they were not intimately associated w ith the Nepal state,

having submitted to Prithvi Narayan in return for considerable internal

autonomy, in part i c u l a r the retention of their

kip at

pre- R a n a times — indeed the b an on Newar recruitment was not to be rescinded until the o v e r throw of the Rana regime in 1951. A number of Newars h eld administrative posts during the n i n eteenth century and the

role o f a few such individuals was to be very important under Jang Bahadur. Newars also p r o v i d e d almost the entire commercial class.

N evertheless their p o s i t i o n remained very much that of a conquered people.

The pol i t i c a l structure of uniiied Nepal was ess e n t i a l l y that of Gorkha t r anslated to Kathmandu, though Prithvi N a r a y a n was careful to

present h i mself as continuing the principal ritual functions of his Newar

precedessors o n his ne w throne. Gorkha forces h ad e n tered Kathmandu

% ±

w h i l s t the inhabitants were celebrating the festival of Indra Jatra,

during which the k i n g recei v e d

t'ilak

istadevata

the p l a t f o r m e r ected for the ceremony and received the Kumari's recognition, w hil s t the defeated ruler, Jay Prakash Malla, was in flight to the

n eighbouring city of Patan. 14 Thereafter the a u t h ority o f Prithvi and

his successors r e s t e d on Hindu notions of m onarchy as t h e y h a d evolved in b o t h the Indo-Nepalese and the Newar t r a d i t i o n s , as w e l l as on the

prestige wh i c h m i l i t a r y conquest h ad conferred u pon the d y n a s t y , and upon

the crucial fact that land was entirely within the king's gift. These

factors are to some extent interlocking, especially the second and third, but for ease of analysis these religious, military and economic aspects of royal power will be e xamined in turn.

Kingship as a R e l i g i o u s Institution

Much ink has flowed on the question of the religious nature of Hindu

monarchy, in p a r t i c u l a r since Louis Dumont advanced his thesis that the

spiritual p r e d o minance o f the Brahman resulted in the 'secularising' of royal power. 15 Dumont's view has b een heavily criticised in subsequent

a nthropological and Indological w r i t i n g s , and there has been a renewed

emphasis on the ' m a g ico-religious1 aspect of kingship; in this process critics have sometimes overl o o k e d the fact that D u mont h i mself did not

deny that this aspect continued to p l a y an important role. Differences o f emphasis are possible because, as Ronald Inden has p o i n t e d out,

Indian kingship is neither fully divine (as in Jap a n or ancient E g y p t ) ,

nor fully immanent (as in China or medieval E u r o p e ) , but a mixture of the two, a situation m irrored b y the symbolic, cyclical alternation

between the two states found in royal rituals and p a r t i c u l a r l y the

installation ceremony as described in early medieval texts. 16 The form

of the ceremony u s e d b y the Shah dynasty in Nepal — m o s t recently for

King Birendra's coronation in 1975 — is essentially t hat laid down in

the eighth-century

Vtsnudharmottara

bri e f l y from Kanyakubja, claimed as their original home b y Nepali Brahmans.

Whilst it m a y be d ebated h o w far o rdinary Nepalis in the p e r i o d we

are considering thought consciously of their king as rainmaker, guarantor o f the cosmic order, bride of the earth and so on, as Vedic texts and the

mix e d V edic-Puranic royal rituals suggested h i m to be, b e l i e f . in the

divine or q u asi-divine nature of the k i n g 1s p e rson remains strong among many o f his subjects even today. It is a commonplace of the tourist

handbooks that he is an

avatar

Manusmrdti-

On the Gork h a side the s e v enteenth-century King R a m a Shah is referred to as

visnuko ams

vamsaval'L

(chronicle) whi c h doubless represents an older tradition, 18 and the title

'Narnarayan' ('the h u m a n N a r a y a n 1) was included in the G o rkha king's

prasastd.

avatar

S 3

rulers of South - e a s t A s i a were b e l i e v e d to be by their subjects. 19

This is perhaps also the case w i t h the Shah kings of uni f i e d Nepal,

as is arguably attested b y the v ery expression

V'Csnuko ams

1830s, could assert w i thout qualification, 'Your M a jesty is an

avatar

,

God . The t e r m was in any case one which came r e adily to m i n d in royal contexts t h r oughout Hindu India; indeed in D a r bhanga district, immediately

south of the Nepal border, a Maithili bard celebrating famine relief

efforts b y the B r itish government in 1873/4 could even describe the 'Company' as h a v i n g 'become an

avatar

Another demons t r a t i o n is p r o v i d e d by the p e asant farmers of Janakpur d istrict (in the Nepal Tarai) asserting that the king shines w i t h one h a l f of the fiery ener g y of the sun (identified w i t h the supreme s o u l ) , while Brahmans and ascetics embody a m uch lesser p r o p o r t i o n of divine energy.23

It m ust be admitted, however, that the k ing is at the same time dependent on the Brahmans for the assumption of his superhuman s t a t u s ,

since Brahman priests must officiate at his installation ceremony and at other royal rituals. Additionally, consistent w i t h the p ractice of the

hill p r i ncipalities w h i c h h a d b e e n amalgamated to f o r m the n e w kingdom,

Prithvi Nar a y a n and his successors followed the classical Hindu pattern of reinforcing their legitimacy through extensive lands grants to Brahmans.

was w a ning by the medieval period. In Gorkha and subsequently in unified

Nepal, much greater importance attached to the post of

rajguru.

guru's

gayatri mantra,

Rtgveda

s acred cord at his

upanayan,

diksa mantra,

gayatrd

diksa guru

two different families. Aft e r the establishment of the Rana regime both roles were entrusted to a single family — the Pandes — b ut by n ow the

k ing himself had lost effective power, so there was no longer the same need to balance one

guru

The importance of the

rajguru

b a c kground of the h e i g h t e n e d emphasis given to the

guru-sisya

had long been of great influence in Nepal. The expr e s s i o n

ddksa

('initiation') frequently occurs in Vedic texts, b ut later came to refer p re - e m i n e n t l y to tantric initiation. 26 In no other H i n d u state does the

institution of

rajguru

2 5

inscriptions show that the

gurus

sphere. 27 It is wo r t h noting, however, that in Bengal and elsewhere,

the role o f the pur o h i t as royal adviser seems to have b e e n superseded by a

dharmadhyaksa

dharmadhikaranika

equated with the Nepali

dharmadhikar

p rovi d e d

rajgurus

dharmadh'ikar

Whi l e the relationship w i t h Brahmans was the k ey religious buttress to the king's position, non-Brahman elements p l a y e d a supporting role.

The Newar kings of Kathmandu h ad b e e n closely assoc i a t e d w i t h the goddess Taleju, in whose cult non-Brahmans officiated. As we have already seen,

Prithvi N a r a y a n c o n tinued the cust o m of receiving

tiiak

reconfirmation of his royal power, from the

Kirnari Devi-,

The Shah kings d id not take over all the other aspects of their

p r e d e c e s s o r s1 special r e l a tionship w ith Taleju, b ut they h ad their own

p ersonal dei t y (

istadevata)

this sect h a d long been closely associated with m a n y of the ruling families in central and w e s t e r n N e p a l .30

A lthough b o t h actual p ractice in certain parts of India and also a

a number of

dharmasastra

ksatriya

essential for a Hin d u king, it was none the less certainly to be preferred.

Kings whose

sudra

situation through the

hivanya garbha

ksatriya vavna

difficulties, since, in common w i t h the ruling families of m any of the

hill states incorporated into the new kingdom, they had long claimed descent from R a j p u t refugees fleeing into the Himalayas to escape the

Mu s l i m invader. There is no reason to doubt that some refugees

did

the pedigrees a dvanced b y the numerous hill chieftains have rightly

attracted considerable scepticism: in many cases they will have been fabrications b y court bards to flatter rulers of simple Khas extraction.

The specific c l a i m of the Shah dynasty, who see themselves as the

descendants of a fourteenth-century prince of Mewar, the pr e m i e r Rajput

state, has b een carefully analysed b y Leelanteswar B a r a l , and shown to be almost certainly false. 33 P r o m the poi n t of v iew of the position of the

mo n a r c h y in the n i n eteenth century, however, this is r e a l l y irrelevant:

what is important is that the claim was generally acce p t e d in Nepal and

also by the G o r a khpur Rajputs w ith w h o m the Nepali royal family inter­

married. Acc o r d i n g to the famous story related b y Brian Hodgson, the Shah family's p r etensions were rejected by the Mew a r court itself when

an envoy from a seventeent h - c e n t u r y king of Gorkha h ad to confess that

he h i mself h a d a Brahman name although he was of the

ksatriya

plains. 24 Hodgson also stressed frequently in his correspondence that

2 7

the marriage of K i n g Rana Bahadur to a Brahman girl at the end of the eighteenth century h ad left an indelible stain on the Shah escutcheon as far as the more

pakka

of the Mewar attitude in the nineteenth century suggests rather that even if they were wo r r i e d about the dynasty's subsequent behaviour, they were inclined to accept that the two families were connected. A letter from

the Udaypur ruler t o King Rajendra of Nepal in 1838 r e f e r r e d to h i m as a 3 6

member of his own family. In 1861 Prince Birendra, son of Rajendra

by his junior queen, applied to Maharana Sarup Singh to be allowed to visit Udaypur and be given maintenance at his court. Birendra, who had

been in exile in India w i t h his mother and brother since 1846, described the Maharana as his 'paternal u n c l e 1. In a letter to the G o v e r n o r - G e n e r a l 's

Ag e n t for Rajputana, through w h o m the correspondence was being conducted, Sarup Singh expressed willingness to invite the p r i n c e 'as the boy is a relative of his'. 37 The p r o j e c t fell through only b e c a u s e of the death

o f the Maha r a n a shortly afterwards.38

In addition to emphasising their status as

ksatri-yas

ksatriya

dharma

In the

Di-bya JJpades

asal

Hindustan

dust, official Nepa l i documents continued to refer to India as

Mughlana

existing customs, efforts were made to p rohibit cow slaughter and more

('National Code') of 1854.

Yet despite the assertively Hindu nature of the monarchy, reinforcement

for the king's l e gitimacy could sometimes actually be sought from the

mteccha

prasastd

contained the Persian words

bahaduF samsev gang

A l a m II, or by a local north Indian ruler claiming to act in the emperor's

name. In his 1770 letter soliciting this title, Prithvi described

himself as 'the

zam'indav

jagdrdar.

back as the seventeenth century, envoys of King R a m a Shah of G o rkha had, on the R a n a of Udaypur's advice, sought authority f rom an earlier emperor for an alteration in the

pTasastd,

Sanskritic. 42 In the latter h a l f of the n i n eteenth century, the Rana

Maharajas' ready acceptance of British titles mig h t be regar d e d as a continuation and extension of this tradition.

The M ilitary Factor

Even where all other factors making for legitimacy are missing, capacity as a m i l i t a r y leader m ay be sufficient to secure the allegiance

of one's followers. This was especially true of P r ithvi Narayan's

situation w h e n h e was still only the ruler of one a m ongst fifty hill

2 9

principalities. The social and political structure was similar throughout

the

ba.'is'l

caubi-S'L

Prithvi's success in a greater degree of concern for the p e ople that he, and to some extent his predecessors at G o r k h a , evinced in comparison with the Rajp u t rulers of other hill states. 43 This m ay well be true, b ut it

was specifically P r i t h v i 's milit a r y abilities and the fact that he w a s

successful w h i c h bou n d his followers to him. Oth e r members of his family were also effective commanders, notably his second son Bahadur Shah, but this was not the case w ith his successors on the throne. Either the

simple fact of their being minors at the time of accession or their lack

of aptitude resul t e d in command of the army in the field always going to someone other than the king himself. Prithvi's own exploits had been sufficient to allow his direct descendants a k ind of r e f l e c t e d glory, and

this is p a r t of the reason for the general loyalty o f the army during the

years of internal crisis w h i c h are the main focus of this study. But the fact that it was the family rather than the individual w ho attracted the

army's traditional loyalty, made it easier for t hem to accept the transfer of the throne from K i n g R a j e n d r a to King Surendra engin e e r e d by Jang

Bahadur in 1846-7.

The senior officers of the army were drawn f rom the king's own Rajput relatives and from a n u mber of Khas families, m o s t o f w h o m h a d been

a ssociated with the Shah dyn a s t y through several generations. The c omposition o f this elite will be examined more c l osely below, b ut here it is important to note that although a parti c u l a r commander mig h t well

enjoy patron - c l i e n t ties w ith soldiers under him, as w ell as influence

over t h e m on the strength of his personal q u a l i t i e s , the w a y in whi c h

the army was recruited and p a i d w o r k e d to strengthen the direct link between soldier and monarch. Up until the end of the eighteenth century,

a large propo r t i o n o f N e p a l ’s milit a r y force was made u p of irregulars

raised and maint a i n e d b y officers known as

imwaos

battalions continued to be m a i n t a i n e d in the hills, u n d e r officers of

varying r a n k s , bu t they were of minimal importance in the overall b a l a n c e . The political importance o f the regular army was e nhanced after the

A n g l o -Gorkha w a r w hen it was largely concentrated at the c a p i t a l . Direct

control b y the king — or his representative — was thus facilitated.

Since pa y m e n t of the milit a r y from the m ost senior off i c e r to private individual was predomi n a n t l y b y assignment of land revenue, this whole

aspect of royal p o w e r can best be further considered in the context of

land assignment generally.

Land and Central Control

The confident assertion b y early European o b s e rvers that the South Asian ruler w as the owner of the soil is now g e n erally seen as a gross

over-simplification, stemming b o t h from p r e conceptions o f 'oriental

d e s p o t i s m 1 and from the assumption that there h a d to be an 'owner' in the

W e s t e r n sense a nd that therefore if neither the

jag-irdar

indigenous concept of p r o p e r t y in land, as it ha d dev e l o p e d by the early

3 1

m edieval period, was one of concurrent rights held b y a number of

parties, rather than exclusive ownership by one individual, the situation thus resembling that seen by Bloch in feudal Europe. 46 A lthough the

M u s l i m invasions b r ought certain changes in the concept o f land r i g h t s , the p i cture p a i n t e d by Habib for the Mughal p e r i o d is b a s i cally the same. 47 Ag a i n s t this background, the frequent insistence by Mahesh

Chandra Regmi, the foremost authority on Nepali land tenure, on the doctrine of state o w n ership is initially a little disquieting. However,

there is evidence to show that the b a lance of rights bet w e e n king, cultivator and intermediary in Nepal was indeed m ore firmly tilted in

the royal favour in Nepal than elsewhere in South Asia. The

gagi-v

revenue right but also entitled the beneficiary to dispossess the cultivator unless the l a t t e r 1s tenure was in a special pro t e c t e d category.48

Stress on the king's p r e d o minant right h a d in any case long been one

important strand in the Rin d u tradition, and the speed and completeness of the G o rkha conquest doubtless reinforced the noti o n in the Himalayan c o n t e x t .

C onscious awareness of the king's p r o prietorship as a distinguishing

feature of the Nepali system is shown in

Jang Bahadurko fielat-t latra

The sovereign cannot confiscate anybody's property, p u n i s h anyone, resort to violence or insult, n or h a n d out and cancel appointments at his own pleasure, as if h e w e r e absolute master of his o wn r e s o u r c e s . His w e a l t h in fact comes from the earnings from agriculture of the nobility, the mili t a r y and the common p e o p l e , who give up one half as the k i n g 1s s h a r e

.^9

land in Nepal. In a slightly earlier Nepali account o f Britain, the

IngZisvajyaprabandhavcmsavaZZ

bunyad'i bZrta,

BunyadZ

bZrta

of one type of Nepali land tenure under which, contrary to the usual practice, the king did grant outright possession.

Bt-vta

Hindu royal practice, and it has been argued that it was a major cause of the 1f e u d a l i s a t i o n 1 of N o r t h India w h i c h developed d u r i n g the early centuries A D . 52 Land could also be gifted for the support of a temple

or shrine, tenure of this type be i n g known in Nepal as

guthi

bZrta

addition to grants for religious p u r p o s e s ,

bZrta

this sort to his o wn f o l l o w e r s , bu t also frequently c o n firmed the

bi-vta

t o w n s , who were allowed to retain their

sona bZrta

Zhumbu

3 3

former Newar sovereigns. Land in this last category was subject to

taxation, b u t was not assignable as

jagiv

exemption also applied to the

kdpat

these together w i t h

b'Crta

sarkavi

On

sarkari,

administrators — the king's subjects held land p u r e l y on sufferance,

either as tenants in return for rent, or as

jagirdars

apointments lasted.

Jagdvs

There is a distinction, though, in that whereas more senior personnel

were in effect local rulers, collecting taxes of all kinds and exercising

criminal jurisdiction, the ordin a r y soldiers, if not c u l t i vating his

jag-ir

to

jagi-rdars

the state. C o l l e c t i o n from land in this category was c arried out either directly b y an official of the central government o r by tax-farmers.

The entire system, similar in many ways to that of Mughal India,

involved a high degree of administrative decentralisation, since a