The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period) v1.c14.34

v1.c14.34

The period that followed the death of Jayadeva is extremely obscure in the history of Nepal. It has been shown by Sylvain Lévi that the Tibetans exercised hegemony over Nepal for about two centuries, from the beginning of the 7th century to practically the end of the 8th century. The dominions of K'i-li-pa-pu (*c.* 650-79), the grandson of Sroṅ-btsan-sgam-po, who died in *c.* 650 A. D., extended in the south to Central India (Po-lo-men). That the Tibetans held sovereignty in Nepal is proved by the Lagantol inscription of Śivadeva (119=714 A. D. ?), which refers to the obligation of furnishing 5 labourers for *Bhoṭṭa-viṣṭi*.¹ Another evidence of the Tibetan suzerainty seems to be supplied by the name of the Nepal king Aramuḍi who according to Kalhaṇa opposed the Kashmirian king Jayāpīḍa in the second half of the 8th century A. D. Stein rejected the episode as mythical, but Lévi has shown that the name of the king is Tibetan.² In the years 816-38 the dominions of the Tibetan king Khri lde srong btsan, called also Ral-pa-ćan, extended over a vast tract from Mongolia in the north to the Ganges, including Nepal in the south. But the anti-Buddhistic policy of Glang-Darma (Chinese Ta-mo), who succeeded Itai in 838, produced a formidable religious revolution and shattered the empire of the Tibetans.³ Taking advantage of the civil war in Tibet, Nepal appears to have gained its freedom; and it is not unlikely that the Nepal era, which starts in 879 A. D., marks the date of its emancipation from the Tibetan yoke.⁴ Cunningham in his *Book on Indian Eras*, mentions Rāghavadeva as the founder of this era. Curiously enough no Vaṁśāvalī expressly says that this prince founded the Nepal era. Most of the Vaṁśāvalīs ignore him altogether. Lévi has therefore objected to the acceptance of Cunningham’s view. According to him ‘the pale figure of Rāghavadeva does not harmonise with the idea of the founder of an era.’ He has therefore suggested a rather plausible theory to explain the institution of this new era. According to him, the superstitious dread of the Nepalese for the figure “8” was responsible for the foundation of it. The year in which “8” occurs according to him has ever been a year of misfortune for Nepal. It was in the year 888 (A. D. 1768) that the Gurkhas conquered Nepal. The fear of living for 100 years under the menace of a formidable misfortune had thus perhaps sufficed to cause a revolution in the calendar of the superstitious Nepalese. Referring to the Baijnath *praśastis*,¹ which are dated in *Śaka* 7(26) and *Lokakāla* 80 (which starts from 3075 B. C., but in use allows the hundreds and thousands to be omitted), he says that the Nepalese applied the principle of the *Lokakāla* to the *Śaka* era. The Baijnath *praśastis* show that both the eras were current in the heights of Kangra, Kashmir, and Nepal, and the originality of this new era lay simply in counting 1, 2, etc., in the place of (Śaka) 801, 802, etc.² But Bendall has shown that the name of Rāghavadeva is duly recorded in a new chronicle discovered by him. “Not only so, but the years of reign assigned to him and his immediate successors quite accord with the tradition of his having founded the era. Thus if we add together the duration of his reign and that of his five successors down to Lakṣmīkāmadeva we get about 135 years. This, again, added to 879-80 brings us to the second decade of the eleventh century, when we know from a colophon that Lakṣmīkāma had commenced to rule at all events as joint sovereign, becoming sole king later on”³ It is therefore perhaps not unreasonable to reject the theory of the French *savant* and to regard Rāghavadeva as the king whose reign ushered in a new era in Nepal.