A interesting slice of Nepal's history in the current issue of
Kathmandu's ECS magazine.

Read it in full at:

- http://www.ecs.com.np/article_1.htm

Where have all the Mallas Gone?
The Descendants of Malla Kings

By Sampada Malla & Dinesh Rai

It is the third day after Dashain and a gathering of Malla family members waits inside the Taleju Bhawani temple of Bhaktapur. This Goddess has been the patron deity of the ruling families since the time of the Malla kings. The Mallas gathered today are direct descendants of the Malla rulers and have come to receive �tika� from the Royal priest.

They come here during all the major festivals and rights of passage ceremonies. It was here within the walls of the Royal Palace that the three Malla kings of the valley made their last stand against the invading Gorkhali army. The bullet holes on the statues of Saraswati and Laxmi that flank the temple�s doorway are a reminder of the last battle that brought an end to the long reign of the benevolent Mallas. It was 1768.

Today, we are proud of our architectural heritage and are delighted to show visitors the grandeur of the three Durbar Squares, which are World Heritage Sites. They were all built during the Malla period. Besides these, there are many fabulous temples that owe their existence to the creative zeal of the Mallas. It was the Mallas who transformed a tiny village into a well organized and planned city which later became known as Bhaktapur.

Art, music, drama and poetry flourished under their patronage and some kings are even known for their hand in literary works besides a bit of carpentry. The conduits that these kings constructed in the cities of Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur still supply many of the citizens with a constant supply of drinking water. The water spouts that we come across everywhere we go, stand testimony to the organized society that the Mallas had built in the valley.

You may stumble upon a water spout that has run dry; it is only because modern building practices have destroyed the underground conduits and cut off the supply of fresh water. The Raj Kulo (Royal or main Conduit) that supplies Patan�s stone water spouts with water, is presently being renovated.

The caste system was introduced, whereby people of each caste had a duty to perform in society. 238 years since the fall of the Mallas, the Newar society still retains the system. There are the priestly classes, the butchers, sweepers, etc. In Bhaktapur, many citizens still live in their consigned areas with the lower castes living in the outskirts and the upper classes in the central area.

Festivals accompanied by drama, was an integral part of the peoples� lives. The performances took place on the dabalis (brick platforms) that can be seen around the three cities of Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur. Art and entertainment was a way of life during the Malla period. Music and dance groups were supported by royal decree and were given land as a means of fund raising. Many festivals such as the Gai Jatra (Cow Festival) and the cult of the Kumari were the creations of Malla kings. The Living Goddess Kumari is still a powerful figure in Nepali society.

�After the defeat of the Malla Kings, their descendents left the valley and settled in different districts of Nepal. As an endeavor to develop a mutual relationship between the Malla descendents and to keep alive the rich traditions of our forefathers, we formed the foundation and have been regularly organizing various kinds of activities.� remarks Devendra Kumar Malla, Vice President of the Malla (Pradhananga) Foundation and the writer of the book, �Bhaktapur�s King Bhuwan Malla�s descendents.�

History

The literal meaning of �Malla� in Sanskrit is �wrestler�. �The Mallas as a class of people find a place in several ancient treatises with identical heroic tradition.� states D.R.Regmi in his book, �Medieval Nepal�. It is believed that Arideva�s father was so impressed by his ability as a wrestler that he conferred on him the title of �Malla� and with his reign in the Nepal valley during the twelfth century began a new dynasty.

The rest at:

- http://www.ecs.com.np/article_1.htm

It is funny how we overlook the good things ppl have done, we will always remember the bad things they have done.
Noone is perfect, neither were the Mallas. But if you are to be open minded and compare them to the rest of the rulers we've had in Nepal (excluding the last 50 years or so), I'd say they have done more for their country than any other rulers have. Yes, they were stupid because they fought amongs themselves, yes they were stupid because they thought business was everything. They didn't even think about building an army. They didn't want to expand beyond Kathmandu Valley. That was their problem. They might have introduced the caste system but none of the rulers after them seemed so interested in getting rid of it either.
Get a life ppl. Appreciate your history. Learn from it. Just dont butt in to diss ppl.
Ashu, I'd like to thank you for starting this thread.

One more thing, the Mallas might have introduced the caste system in Kathmandu Valley ,but it existed in other parts of Nepal, long before that.

Whoever they are,
They are now probably scratching their butts and remebering their glorious past. Just like some Ranas now. May be the mallas were rich and prosperous, but they weren't happy ones because of their internal fued.
By the way, was it possible to look all over ktm from talezu bhawani and find out whose house's kitchen isn't on fire? How could he distinguish the house in such narrow lanes of newar regime ktm?
Don't be a fool and decide that just coz they made beautiful architectures and hence were the best rulers. If that's the way it is, Ranas are not 19 out of 20. May be they were running their kingdom like the Ranas. Looting from common people and glorifying themselves. Don't forget people, you know only what those kings made the historians wrote.
Does anyone want Pharohs to rule egypt just coz they made those pyramids? Who forgets how they buried those millions of people inside the pyramids?

i'm little confuse are malla not newars or are they? if not who were they? anyone.

Birbhadra jee,
http://sajha.com/sajha/html/openthread.cfm?forum=2&ThreadID=25694&show=all#197810
One thing I am pretty much sure that they are degraded half aryans breeds from India.

I liked the explanation by butter cracker.

nepe sahila,

thanks, yo nepe bhane ko ke ho? sahila bhaneko ta bujhe mailao kancho sahilo haina?

बिरभद्र जी,
यो नेपे भनेको चाहिं नेपाली साहिंला लेख्दा लामो भो भनेर नेपेसाहिंला मात्र लेखेको हो, युनिक पनि हुन खोज्या क्या अलिकति।

Hey Many and Nepe Sahila,
Im guessing that at that time, kathmandu used to be pretty small....the NewRoad Gate was the entrance to the city, outside it was ghanaa Jungle.......I remember my grandmom tellin me, when the Ranas killed those martyrs, she went to see Shukra Raj lai mareko thau in Teku, and it was a long walk past the woods she said!!!.....outside of bhimsentha, syaal haru karauthiyo re.....so probably...in the 1300s kathmandu must've been really small...small enough that you can see all the houses from atop Taleju.

Also at that time, they didnt have as tall buildings as they have these days.

Didnt know the story of Pratap Malla having his father emprisonned??

History, a lot of time can be learned through the literature of that era, if you read newari literature from the past, you can see a lot of places where the king gave rewards for some good deed, the king helping people, and the king punishing the wrong doers....I havent read a lot of them, only bout one or two....

However, in the stories I read, I can see a lot of royal presence in the lives of the people, as in strict rules against certain practices, strict rules against selling alcohol, and stuff like that.

One example/smthing i learnt recently about the mallas is that the mallas werent very keen of the Sati system, where the widow of a dead person sits on her husbands' pyre. They didnt completely ban it, for it was against the hindu system, but they made a rule that no-one can force a widow who doesnt want to follow the sati system....also they made a rule that if a wife is pregnant, she should not be let to sit on her husbands pyre.

Anyways...back to the topic...for the time they lived in, in the 1300s, when the americans didnt exist....France and England were ruining all their country's resources in the Hundred Year's war burning each other down; The Mallas were doing pretty good comparatively.

Thank You DCvirus, really appreciate it.
From time to time, here in sajha, we come across, really intolerable, narrow-minded individuals. I have nothing against them. They are who they are but the moment they start dissing ppl and calling them degraded, I don't see why I should keep quiet about it.

Oh! Nepesahila, calling yourself nepali, being proud of it. well a piece of information, you wouldn't be today's Nepesahila if the Mallas weren't there. and Yes the Mallas had some indian genes in them; but then what bout the rest of Nepal, weren't the Bahuns, Chettriyas all once decendents of the Indian migrants to Nepal. SO wat does that make u a degenerate of the degenerates, the degraded of the degraded Aryans. C'mon gimme a break. Go and learn about your roots. Be glad that today you have a flag to be proud of unlike the many refugees out there. But then I guess, you will be the one to have proudly studied the American history with all the enthusiasm u could gathered and ignored Nepal's history because after all it is only Nepal.. the Nepal that will stand intolerable, narrow-minded and ignorant people like you.....

Stop this crap and just learn to live without hating on people.. that'll make everybody's life a lot easier.

dc virus,
no offence but, I am still not satisfied with your answer. Even if it is true, I agree. It could be.
Butter cracker,
Where and what did I say that pissed you so much bro? If you aren't satisfied with my answer, I ask you to read the link above I posted in my previous thread. I said degraded because they were, and neither you nor me are to decide what they are at present. I am talking about the past.
Go look at the english dictionary, degradation and migration are different words. Okay.
If mallas weren't there, I wouldn't be a Nepali? Well I don't know much about it than other fellers here.

If Malla rulers of Kathmandu Valley were Malla newars and not Malla thukuris then should they be a mix between Indians and Tibetans? I always thought the physical attribute of newars resembled the mixture between dravidian and mongolians.

hurray did you mean aryans, cause dravidians mean south indian race. that's what i think i could be wrong

Butter_Cracker why am i to be glad malla ruled kathmandu?why am i to appreciate the wrong history?
well　the last king Jayprakash of kathmamdu and Ranjit Singh of bhaktapur is a living proof malla had their army. In malla regeim people who were decleared desh drohi (that era and today's era all against the king are called desh drohi by his baraute, nepal hasn't changed a lot though)'s skin were cut off it was know as jeudai chala kadne, practised still after shah regeim till today by kings army.
building new era's building doesn't make any one a good ruler. like nepesahila said rana's building are really good they show us the glory dats of 19th centuary but were people happy then? if rana were before shah you would be praising them for their buildings too.

dckta do more research pratap malla was a wise man at his time he was the only man who could wrtie "winter" and he did in one of the walls near taleju. but he was a power hunger like shah king too he emprisonned his father to be the king.

And talking of sati system do u know who banned it? yes it was chandra samsher and he banned the slavery in nepal but was he a good ruler? think about it. one two good deeds of a people can't hid the misdeed they have commited.
Anyway all this royals are blood suckers and they will remain until we give them free blood to feed

Butter_Cracker why am i to be glad malla ruled kathmandu?why am i to appreciate the wrong history?
well　the last king Jayprakash of kathmamdu and Ranjit Singh of bhaktapur is a living proof malla had their army. In malla regeim people who were decleared desh drohi (that era and today's era all against the king are called desh drohi by his baraute, nepal hasn't changed a lot though)'s skin were cut off it was know as jeudai chala kadne, practised still after shah regeim till today by kings army.
building new era's building doesn't make any one a good ruler. like nepesahila said rana's building are really good they show us the glory dats of 19th centuary but were people happy then? if rana were before shah you would be praising them for their buildings too.

dckta do more research pratap malla was a wise man at his time he was the only man who could wrtie "winter" and he did in one of the walls near taleju. but he was a power hunger like shah king too he emprisonned his father to be the king.

And talking of sati system do u know who banned it? yes it was chandra samsher and he banned the slavery in nepal but was he a good ruler? think about it. one two good deeds of a people can't hid the misdeed they have commited.
Anyway all this royals are blood suckers and they will remain until we give them free blood to feed

Butter_Cracker why am i to be glad malla ruled kathmandu?why am i to appreciate the wrong history?
well　the last king Jayprakash of kathmamdu and Ranjit Singh of bhaktapur is a living proof malla had their army. In malla regeim people who were decleared desh drohi (that era and today's era all against the king are called desh drohi by his baraute, nepal hasn't changed a lot though)'s skin were cut off it was know as jeudai chala kadne, practised still after shah regeim till today by kings army.
building new era's building doesn't make any one a good ruler. like nepesahila said rana's building are really good they show us the glory dats of 19th centuary but were people happy then? if rana were before shah you would be praising them for their buildings too.

dckta do more research pratap malla was a wise man at his time he was the only man who could wrtie "winter" and he did in one of the walls near taleju. but he was a power hunger like shah king too he emprisonned his father to be the king.

And talking of sati system do u know who banned it? yes it was chandra samsher and he banned the slavery in nepal but was he a good ruler? think about it. one two good deeds of a people can't hid the misdeed they have commited.
Anyway all this royals are blood suckers and they will remain until we give them free blood to feed
and one more thing the nau talle durbar in basantapur was not buit by malla but by this grate @sshole Prithvi Narayan Shah( do your research about this too before u get pumped up)

dadagiri bro birami bhayera khattam bhayo balla aajha ali thik bhayeko le yaha ladai maidaan ma utreko

Something everyone gotta think about. We cannot just reapaint the past. Look at the facts. The art and archeitecture of Malla dynasty are still prevelant in Nepal. This proves thier deeds. Cast system. Its one of the tool for better governace and worked perfectly. However it aint got any significance in current time. In the same way, I do not see any point blaming Prithvi Naryan Shah. He is the one who untied nation. If we look at that time that what happened globally.

SO I do not see any point scratching old wound to find dirt. Give necessary credit for ones who did good for a nation.

ALso thie things mentioned above is on my limited knowledge about Nepalis history. However development works done in Malla Dynasty stands out nice and clear till now.

peace out

hey many,
Let me know where I should do my research.....where do you get your information from?? Id love to read a book on history of Nepal, about the Mallas. I get my information frm a book called Social History of Nepal by TR Vaidya, Tri Ratna Manandhar and Shankar Lal Joshi, if you are familiar with these names, you'd know that they are amongst the pioneers in establsihment of the nepali education system.

Where did you learn bout the Jeudai Chaala kaadne punishment?? Im skeptical about it being frm the malla period specially since it is a nepali term, if it was from the Malla period, chances are they would use a newari name at least, but again I might be wrong.

About the Mallas having an army; definately they had an army, infact Prithvi Narayan Shah tried invading Ktm a couple of times, everytime the malla army defeated them and chased the shahs away, the only mistake the Mallas did was, they did not bother to follow Shah and kill him; they didnt see him as a threat.

Later, Prithvi Narayan Shah disguised himself as a traveller, along with his army and entered kathmandu valley (there is a long story about how he tried to get a place to stay, and every house he went to refused to let him stay for the night, which was in present Thahamaru, for which he later named the place Thahamaru which in newari meant no place). During the festival of indrajatra, when the king and all his army were drunk and enjoying the festivities, Shah went inside the Palace and took over the throne by killing all the drunk soldiers by dhokha!!!

...About Pratap Mallas writing at Hanuman Dhokha, yeah I learnt about it at Dashain, waiting in the long line to go to Taleju, My Dad explained to me how it was supposed to be written in 36 different languages and the legend goes that, if the whole thing is read out loud correctly by anyone, kata ho kata bata pani ho ki milk bagna thalcha re...from a dhunge dhara...!!!!

About the Sati System, I know Jung Bahadur was strictly against Sati system too, he put forward the code of 1854 which forbade the commitment of sati if:
(a) the widow was below 16 yrs
(b) if she had a son less than 16 yrs of age
(c) if she had a daughther less than 5 yrs of age
(d) if she had two or more husbands
(e) If she was pregnant at the time of her husbands death

About Nau talle Mandir, intersting I always thought it was built by Pratap Malla for his wife. I know that there are three other smaller peaks on the building that has the nau talle building ( one with a huge leaf as its roof), each were built by three different architechts from Patan, Bhadgaon, and Kirtipur, .... I thought the tallest one was by an architect from Kantipur ( that is kathmandu);

Let me know where you got that piece about Nautalle being built by Prithivi Narayan Shah!!!

Whoever built them, it is known fact that a lot can be seen from the Malla period, but lot less from the Shah; which doesnt necessarily mean that Mallas were the best and the ultimate rulers; Im pretty sure there might've been a lotta dark patches in the Malla royalties, and the system at that time, afterall, its almost a thousand years ago....and still after a thousand years later, we dont have a decent system. Hence I beleive i say for others here too that the conclusion is, comparatively, Mallas have done more than any other ruler for nepal/ktm.

Its good to know about Nepal's history