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NepalANCIENT NEPAL, ca. 500 B.C.-A.D. 700
Early Influences on Nepal
Neolithic tools found in the Kathmandu Valley indicate
that
people were living in the Himalayan region in the distant
past,
although their culture and artifacts are only slowly being
explored. Written references to this region appeared only
by the
first millennium B.C. During that period, political or
social
groupings in Nepal became known in north India. The
Mahabharata and
other legendary Indian histories mention the
Kiratas (see Glossary),
who still inhabited eastern Nepal in 1991. Some
legendary sources from the Kathmandu Valley also describe
the
Kiratas as early rulers there, taking over from earlier
Gopals or
Abhiras, both of whom may have been cowherding tribes.
These
sources agree that an original population, probably of
Tibeto-Burman ethnicity, lived in Nepal 2,500 years ago,
inhabiting
small settlements with a relatively low degree of
political
centralization.
Monumental changes occurred when groups of tribes
calling
themselves the Arya migrated into northwest India between
2000 B.C.
and 1500 B.C. By the first millennium B.C., their culture
had
spread throughout northern India. Their many small
kingdoms were
constantly at war amid the dynamic religious and cultural
environment of early Hinduism
(see Hinduism
, ch. 2). By
500 B.C.,
a cosmopolitan society was growing around urban sites
linked by
trade routes that stretched throughout South Asia and
beyond. On
the edges of the Gangetic Plain, in the Tarai Region,
smaller
kingdoms or confederations of tribes grew up, responding
to dangers
from larger kingdoms and opportunities for trade. It is
probable
that slow and steady migration of
Khasa (see Glossary)
peoples
speaking Indo-Aryan languages was occurring in western
Nepal during
this period; this movement of peoples would continue, in
fact,
until modern times and expand to include the eastern Tarai
as well
(see Geography
, ch. 2).
One of the early confederations of the Tarai was the
Sakya
clan, whose seat apparently was Kapilavastu, near Nepal's
presentday border with India. Their most renowned son was
Siddhartha
Gautama (ca. 563-483 B.C.), a prince who rejected the
world to
search for the meaning of existence and became known as
the Buddha,
or the Enlightened One. The earliest stories of his life
recount
his wanderings in the area stretching from the Tarai to
Banaras on
the Ganges River and into modern Bihar State in India,
where he
found enlightenment at Gaya--still the site of one of the
greatest
Buddhist shrines. After his death and cremation, his ashes
were
distributed among some of the major kingdoms and
confederations and
were enshrined under mounds of earth or stone called
stupas.
Certainly, his religion was known at a very early date in
Nepal
through the Buddha's ministry and the activities of his
disciples
(see Buddhism
, ch. 2).
The political struggles and urbanization of north India
culminated in the great Mauryan Empire, which at its
height under
Ashoka (reigned 268-31 B.C.) covered almost all of South
Asia and
stretched into Afghanistan in the west. There is no proof
that
Nepal was ever included in the empire, although records of
Ashoka
are located at Lumbini, the Buddha's birthplace, in the
Tarai. But
the empire had important cultural and political
consequences for
Nepal. First, Ashoka himself embraced Buddhism, and during
his time
the religion must have become established in the Kathmandu
Valley
and throughout much of Nepal. Ashoka was known as a great
builder
of stupas, and his archaic style is preserved in four
mounds on the
outskirts of Patan (now often referred to as Lalitpur),
which were
locally called Ashok stupas, and possibly in the
Svayambhunath (or
Swayambhunath) stupa. Second, along with religion came an
entire
cultural style centered on the king as the upholder of
dharma, or
the cosmic law of the universe. This political concept of
the king
as the righteous center of the political system had a
powerful
impact on all later South Asian governments and continued
to play
a major role in modern Nepal.
The Mauryan Empire declined after the second century
B.C., and
north India entered a period of political disunity. The
extended
urban and commercial systems expanded to include much of
Inner
Asia, however, and close contacts were maintained with
European
merchants. Nepal was apparently a distant part of this
commercial
network because even Ptolemy and other Greek writers of
the second
century knew of the Kiratas as a people who lived near
China. North
India was united by the Gupta emperors again in the fourth
century.
Their capital was the old Mauryan center of Pataliputra
(presentday Patna in Bihar State), during what Indian writers
often
describe as a golden age of artistic and cultural
creativity. The
greatest conqueror of this dynasty was Samudragupta
(reigned ca.
353-73), who claimed that the "lord of Nepal" paid him
taxes and
tribute and obeyed his commands. It still is impossible to
tell who
this lord may have been, what area he ruled, and if he was
really
a subordinate of the Guptas. Some of the earliest examples
of
Nepalese art show that the culture of north India during
Gupta
times exercised a decisive influence on Nepali language,
religion,
and artistic expression.
Data as of September 1991
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