The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period) v1.c14.119

Language: English

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After this ruler a new type of royal names appears in the list of Nepalese rulers. The prince who succeeded Vijayakāmadeva was not his son. He was named Arimalladeva, and was the son of Jayaśi(?) malladeva, a chief of unknown origin. Many of the chronicles call him simply Arideva, and explain the term *Malla* in the name of his son by referring to a story that the latter was born when his father was amusing himself with wrestling. Though this word certainly has the meaning of an athlete or wrestler, Lévi, I think, was right in reading in the word an ethnic significance.¹ The word *Malla* as the name of a tribal group of North-eastern India is well known in Indian historical tradition. At the time of Buddha the Mallas formed a non-monarchical confederacy with the Licchavis of Vaiśālī (mod. Basarh, Muzaffarpur District, Bihar). Kuśinagar and Pāvā, where the two greatest heretical teachers of Hinduism died, were situated in their territory. In the epic and Paurāṇic tradition the Mallas are always associated with Kosala, Videha (Tirhut), and Magadha. The *Manusaṁhitā* mentions the Mallas by the side of the Licchavis in its social organisation and it is not a little surprising to find their name again reappearing with their old confederates of Vaiśālī in the land of Nepal.

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It is not impossible that threatened by the growth of imperialism in North-eastern India and unwilling to be merged into the empires of the plains, they, like the Gurkhas of a later period, had retired to the safety of the northern hills and carved out independent principalities in the Himalayan range. While good fortune enabled the Licchavis to occupy the central and rich portion of the Valley, the Mallas appear to have settled further west beyond the Gandak.² There they became a thorn in the side of the Licchavis. This is evident from the Changu Narayan pillar inscription, which records an invasion of Mānadeva (386 = A. D. 496 ?) beyond the Gaṇḍakī against the city of the Mallas (Mallapuri).¹ The struggles between the Mallas and the Licchavis appear to have continued unabated in the subsequent period. An evidence of this is probably to be found in the Dharampur inscription of the time of Śivadeva and Aṁśuvarman (520=630 A. D.?), which refers to the remission of a tax named *Malla-kara*.² The Thankot inscription of the time of Mānadeva and Jiṣṇugupta (*Saṁvat* 500?=610+x ?) also refers to the collection of a tax of the same name in the Nepal valley.³ It is not unlikely that *Mallakara* was a tax like the *Turuṣka-daṇḍa* in the inscriptions of the Gāhaḍavāla Govindacandra (c. 1104-54 A.

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D.)⁴ It is possible that in the plains the latter tax was sometimes meant to be a poll-tax on the Muhammadans.⁵ But the probability that it was also sometimes a tax for the cost of military defence against the depredations of the Turuṣkas or a tax for raising money to buy off the unwelcome visitors is not entirely eliminated. The latter policy was followed by the Sultāns of Delhi when the terrible Mughul hordes appeared on their frontier, and the British Government even to-day pays subsidies to many of the unruly frontier chiefs of N. Western India to keep them quiet. *Mallakara*, to my mind, was probably a tax of this nature, either to buy them off or to defray the cost of fighting the daring marauders from the western hills. It is not necessary however to agree with Lévi, that the Mallas had established in the 7th century some sort of suzerainty over the Bagmati valley.⁶ But later on, in spite of the attempts of the more civilized people of the Valley to keep out these sturdy mountaineers, they appear to have gradually succeeded in penetrating into *Nepāla*. Thus the Buddhist Vaṁśāvalī of Wright describes the foundation of Campāpurī, to the south of Patan, in N. S. 111 (=A.D. 991) by two Malla princes. A MS. of the *Devī-māhātmya* is dated in the year 118 (A. D. 998), in the reign of a chief named Dharmamalla. The chronicle of Wright again refers to the conflict of Nānyadeva with the Mallas in Nepal.

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The Nigliva pillar of Aśoka carries the trace of an inscription of one Śrī-Tapu Malla in *Saṁvat* 1234.¹ From these references it is probably permissible to guess that the Mallas first entered the Valley in considerable numbers by taking advantage of the confusion which prevailed in Nepal immediately before Rāghavadeva (*c.* 879.A.D.). The invasion of Nānyadeva (*c.* 1097 A.D.) and the disorders that inevitably follow a foreign invasion possibly allowed their chiefs to increase in power and prosperity till one of them Arimalladeva, seized the royal power in the Valley sometime before *c.* 317 (A. D. 1197).