The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period) v1.c14.42

Language: English

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For the next 200 years after the foundation of the era, however, we have no epigraphic records of the kings who ruled in the Valley.¹ But, fortunately for us, from the beginning of the 11th century almost a regular series of dates and names of Nepalese kings are found in the colophons of the numerous manuscripts preserved in Nepal and elsewhere. These colophons materially help us in checking the vagaries of the local chroniclers whose accounts also gradually assume a less legendary character as we advance beyond 1000 A.D. According to the "newly discovered" Vaṁśāvalī of Bendall, Rāghavadeva ruled for 46 years and 6 months, and was followed in regular succession by Jayadeva, Vikramadeva, Narendradeva, Guṇakāmadeva I, and Udayadeva. Their reign periods are given as 10 years, 8 years, 9 months, 1 year 6 months, 65 years 5 months, and 5 years 5 months respectively.² Amongst these successors of Rāghavadeva Guṇakāmadeva I appears to have been a vigorous ruler. In Nepalese tradition he passes as the founder of the city of Katmandu. According to Prof. Lévi, Kāntipura, the ancient name of the city, is related to the name Guṇakāma, *kāma* and *kānti* belonging to the root *kam*, *i. e.*, to love.³ About this period the chronicles place the foundation of the cities of Patan and Sanku. The foundation of these cities appears to have marked an epoch in the economic transformation of Nepal.

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A critical study of the inscriptions of the period anterior to this shows that they refer only to *grāmas* and to a rural community which lived mainly by agriculture. Deva-Pattana, standing near the temple of Paśupati, was the only city in the Valley. The king lived near the temple, and the court and pilgrims assured to the *pattana* a sufficient number of customers for the merchandise of the small bazar. But gradually with regular intercourse with the Indian plains commerce developed with a mutual exchange of goods. The formation of the Tibetan kingdom opened up a new direction. As Nepal guarded the important routes which led from the Indian plains to Tibet and China its people soon came into contact with a wider world and left the comparatively less un-remunerative fields for trade and commerce. Lévi has pointed out that at the time when the History of the T'ang (618-905 A.D.) was compiled, merchants were numerous and cultivators rare in Nepal. The growth of commerce and city life also synchronised with the development of manual arts and industries. Goldsmiths, metal founders, painters, illuminators, found a ready market for their handicrafts in the neighbouring countries.¹ Guṇakāmadeva is said to have instituted at Katmandu a *Yātrā* in honour of Lokeśvara Khasarpaṇa, probably in imitation of the *Yātrā* of Matsyendranātha at Patan.² He made large benefactions to the god Paśupati, and appears to have extended his power outside the Valley towards the east.

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In spite of his expenditure on pious donations and military enterprises, he is credited with having left the fabulous sum of 500 millions in charge of the Nāga Vāsuki in the pit of mount Indraśāla.³ It is a pity that we have as yet no authentic dated records either literary or epigraphic for his long and interesting reign. The next king, Udayadeva, was succeeded by Nirbhayadeva, who appears to have ruled jointly at least for some time with Rudradeva, who is placed next in the Vaṁśāvalīs. This is proved by a palm-leaf MS. of the *Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā* in the Cambridge University Library which is dated *Saṁvat* 128 (A.D. 1008) under the *dvirājya* of Nirbhaya and Rudradeva. The term *dvirājya* should be taken in the sense of 'joint regency,' and it refers to a well-known practice in Hindu polity, where two princes either divide a kingdom into two halves, like Yajñasena and Mādhavasena in *Mālavikāgnimitram*, or otherwise hold joint authority without destroying the organic unity of the State.¹ Prof. Lévi seems to have gone too far when he assumes that this form of government must necessarily indicate the dominance of a foreign power. Though this is so in the *Mālavikāgnimitram*, it is an accident and not a corollary of a *dvirājya* form of government.

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It is however not impossible that the Pālas, who dominated the lower Ganges valley, extended their hegemony over Nepal under Mahīpāla and Nayapāla.² This, in the opinion of Lévi, would offer an explanation, for the presence in Nepal of MSS. copied under the Pāla kings, specially under the two abovementioned princes. But this contention of Lévi, though possible, is far from conclusive. As he has himself shown, Buddhism had, at this time and even earlier, united the Nepal valley and the dominions of the Pālas in a closer bond. The Pālas possessed Bodh-Gaya and Sarnath, two of the most sacred sites of Buddhism, while the *vihāra* of Vikramaśilā was a great centre of knowledge and Buddhist piety. Under the circumstances, communication was frequent between the mountain-kingdom and the empire of the Pālas. Amongst the doctors at Vikramaśilā in the 11th century Tāranātha mentions Vairocana Paṇḍita, Ratnakīrti and Kanakaśrī who all came from Nepal. Lévi refers to a notice of a Chinese mission, according to which 300 *Śramaṇas*, after visiting Magadha under the Pālas, returned by way of Nepal. The Tibetan mission sent to Vikramaśilā in about 1040 A.D. to bring back Atīśa met a Nepalese prince on the Indian frontier who went to the same monastery. In the reign of Devapāla, the Indian savant Vajradeva is reported to have gone to Nepal.

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Vāgīśvara Kīrti, a contemporary of Atīśa, went to the same country in the 2nd half of his life, while under the immediate successors of Nayapāla, Pham-mthiṅ with his brother Jñānavajra visited the valley to work for the salvation of its people. When Muḥammad-i-Bakhtyār captured Bihar in about 1193 A.D. Buddhaśrī, the *Sthavira* of the Mahāsaṁghikas at Vikramaśīlā, and many other scholars sought shelter in the hills of Nepal, no doubt taking large numbers of MSS. with them. Under the circumstances it would be perhaps going too far to infer from the find of MSS. copied under the Pālas a hegemony of the latter over Nepal. MSS. may have passed from one country to the another in the ordinary course of communication between the two neighbouring kingdoms, united closely by so many bonds of culture, religion and commerce.¹