Guest guest Posted June 8, 2001 Report Share Posted June 8, 2001 A [very] rapid browse through a history suggests that as fortunes of Nepalese noble families fluctuated, they had to seek [temporary] exile in India, and carried influences from India back, presumably including language. -Arun Gupta Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 8, 2001 Report Share Posted June 8, 2001 Nepalese manuscripts with Shaivite affiliations: We are just about to publish digital hi-res color facsimiles (800 dpi) of some so-far apparently unpublished Shaivite palm-leaf manuscripts from the Rudolf Hoernle collection at Tuebingen, purchased by Hoernle in Nepal. One of them apparently dates from the 11th century. Is this of interest for the current discussion about Nepal's Hinduist past between Profs Witzel and Douglas? The above manuscript contains six individual texts. The inside of the wooden cover shows seven very beautiful painted color representations of Tara. Shaivite connection beyond doubt. (Btw, several more old manuscripts from Nepal will also be published over the next few weeks. They also still await analysis. Updates about availability to follow.) Best regards, Gunthard Mueller gm Will Douglas schrieb: > On Fri 8 Jun 2001, Michael Witzel <witzel quoth: > > >I am afraid, a too simple view of medieval / recent history: > > > Indeed. > > > > > >Well before the Moghuls we have a strong, (archaic) Nepali-speaking > >(inscriptions, copper plates!) Malla kingdom in W. Nepal and in the adjoing > >areas of W. Tibet (12-13th century, see already G. Tucci). This was > >followed by the small 22/24 "kingdoms". Gorkha is just one of them. Its > >history can be read in English in Father Miller's (SJ!) book. (These > >Jesuits do research after their term of teaching is over). > > Hrm. True, and yet not true. > (from a previous posting:) > >* Nepal was and continues to be a fiercely independent Hindu kingdom. > > If you mean after 1768/9, then yes; but otherwise, no. > > The Western Mallas were, up to the time of the Dullu inscription or > thereabouts, Vajrayana Buddhists with Hevajra as their kuladevata. They > produce inscriptions in Sanskrit, early Nepali and Tibetan. Sometime > thereafter they become Saiva. Claiming them as a source of unbroken > Hinduism would be a mistake, at least before the end of the 14th century, > although they are certainly among the forerunners of the modern Gorkha > monarchy. > > As to Nepal, that is, the Newar region centred around the cluster of > city-states in the Kathmandu Valley, it was not much of a unified or > Hindu kingdom until the advent of the Gorkhas. Even in Jayayaksamalla's > reign (described by Petech, among others, as the zenith of the 'unified' > Malla kingdom, centred in Bhaktapur) that king was indeed powerful, but > he apparently did not control Lalitpur, where the local oligarchy (which > incidentally appears to preserve Himalayan, rather than Indian, political > structures) still controlled the land, patronage and resources. > Jayayaksamalla, not unusually for a Newar king, kept a Vajrayana court > priest (who was from Bengal and preferred to live and teach in a > monastery granted him by the Lalitpur oligarchs) and performed Vaisnava > vratas as well as maintaining his allegiance to the family Saiva/Sakta > kuladevata. > > Lalitpur became for a time (in c17) the last example of an Indic > Vajrayana kingdom, comparable to the earlier Western Mallas, the Palas or > some of the Southeast Asia states. The ritual framework appears to have > been very similar to that for Brahminical Indic states, such as Bhaktapur > just across the valley or the modern Gorkha state as M. Witzel has > carefully documented it; but the royal kuladevata and ideology were Vajrayana. > > And as to 'Sanskritization': > > Sanskritization, as the term is applied to Nepal, seems to me a very > blunt instrument. The Maithili Brahmins who came in with Jayasthiti's > court seem to have carried a drastically simplified view on what was > 'Sanskritic'. 200 years before, the king in Mithila sought someone to > fill the job of Buddhist royal priest, and this sort of religious > eclecticism seems to have been common practice after the Palas - the > Western Mallas did a fine job of supporting Saiva cult sites. But perhaps > because their understanding of what was properly Indian or Sanskritic had > narrowed, understandably, in response to their political situation, the > 14th century Maithili Brahmins who came into the Kathmandu Valley no > longer saw Vajrayana as a legitimately Indian religion and consequently > imposed a rather foreign division of religions on the court. Is this > 'Sanskritization'? We would have to use the same term to describe the > process, complete before 1000, whereby local monsoon rituals were > absorbed into the Vajrayana cult of Amoghapasa; but these Maithili > Brahmins would have excluded those same rituals as part of their defense > of 'orthodox' Sanskritic culture. > > Of course, until the late 18th century the majority of the population in > the valley were Buddhist, and their scholars produced significant > original Sanskrit texts well into the 18th century... > > -W. > > -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- > Will Douglas Oriental Institute, Oxford University. > <will > > > indology > > > > Your use of is subject to Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 9, 2001 Report Share Posted June 9, 2001 Will Douglas is certainly right in characterizing the early W. Malla kingdom. >The Western Mallas were, up to the time of the Dullu inscription or >thereabouts, Vajrayana Buddhists with Hevajra as their kuladevata. They >produce inscriptions in Sanskrit, early Nepali and Tibetan. I think it was indeed the Dullu inscription (and a pendant in the northernmost regions) which granted land to a Brahmin Rajaguru. (B. Koelver has written about it some 15 years ago, must check). NB.: I did not claim strong Hinduism for *all* of the Nepalese kingdoms since time immemorial, -- though it must be acknowledged that even in the Kathm. Valley we find Brahmins in influential positions right from the earliest inscriptions (464 +, by now c. 200 CE). And, it is difficult to guess how many of the people were Hindu, how many Buddhist. Anyhow, then as now -- and as visible in medieval Kashmir-- both religions overlap: It is when you call your house priest that your religion shows, and even then, there are exceptions!! Incidentally, speaking about the W. Malla, the Boston Museum has a beautiful sword for which they called me in once. They claim it was Tibetan, but the inscription on the hilt is in *early* Nagari (i- with 3 dots) -- thus neither West-Himalayan Sarada nor KTM Valley Newari script-- but typical W. Malla Nagari. The sword inscription mentions a Bodhisattva (forget which one) and includes the truly Buddhist wish " mara! mara! mara! " (For linguists, mara is found here the 2nd time after Whitney's Roots, which says: 1x in Class. Skt.) >Sometime >thereafter they become Saiva. Claiming them as a source of unbroken >Hinduism would be a mistake, at least before the end of the 14th century, >although they are certainly among the forerunners of the modern Gorkha >monarchy. Right. -- Isn't Dullu a 100 years earlier? I forget, c.1200 ? >As to Nepal, that is, the Newar region centred around the cluster of >city-states in the Kathmandu Valley, it was not much of a unified or >Hindu kingdom until the advent of the Gorkhas. Right and not right. The situation fluctuated back and forth. (Petech hasn't it right, always, at least not in his 1st edition.) We often had 2 lineages (since Licchavi, i.e. Gupta, times) and after Yaksamalla, 2-3-4 kingdoms in the Valley. Their "Hinduness" varies over time and location. Patan, as you say, always gave trouble (see the situation before Sivadeva, 1089 CE, I believe, must chvck in my office) with their (12?) pradhaana-s. On the other hand, wherever you look, you get a Hindu raajaguru/purohita/s'aivaacaarya (I have an old paper on this: On the history and the present state of Vedic tradition in Nepal. Vasudha, 15, No. 12, Kathmandu 1976, 17-24; 35-39 slightly updated & shortened: Regionale und uberregionale Faktoren in der Entwicklung vedischer Brahmanengruppen im Mittelalter. In: Regionale Tradition in Sudasien, H. Kulke and D. Rothermund (ed.) (= Beitrage zur Sudasienforschung 104), Heidelberg 1986, 37-76 (with Engl. Summary) > Even in Jayayaksamalla's >reign ..... did not control Lalitpur, where the local oligarchy (which >incidentally appears to preserve Himalayan, rather than Indian, political >structures) still controlled the land, patronage and resources. Right, see above. All documented (for Sivadeva that is) in the Vamsavali (in Skt & old Newari). >Jayayaksamalla, not unusually for a Newar king, kept a Vajrayana court >priest (who was from Bengal and preferred to live and teach in a >monastery granted him by the Lalitpur oligarchs) and performed Vaisnava >vratas as well as maintaining his allegiance to the family Saiva/Sakta >kuladevata. Note that even the Kathmandu King (a century plus later) had both a Hindu raajaguru/purohita and a Buddhist "raajaguru", living I think at Tache Baha, just east of Hanuman Dhoka. The office still is remembered by modern vajrAcAryas: At the yearly acaagu (aacaaryagoSThi) on Svayambhunath each spring, when newly initiated Bajracharyas are admitted into the fold, it is this Bajracharya who sits in position no.2, next to the oldest one, the Thakali... In the late King Birendra's coronation in 1975, Buddhist priests were invited. >Lalitpur became for a time (in c17) the last example of an Indic >Vajrayana kingdom, comparable to the earlier Western Mallas, the Palas or >some of the Southeast Asia states. The ritual framework appears to have >been very similar to that for Brahminical Indic states, such as Bhaktapur >just across the valley or the modern Gorkha state as M. Witzel has >carefully documented it; but the royal kuladevata and ideology were Vajrayana. Well, half/half, for Patan, I would say: the first Raajaguru of Patan in 1620/1 was the Newar Tantrik brahmin (raajopadhyaaya) Vis'vanaath, who left us his autograph of the Tantric Agnihotra ritual (dated 1601) (private possession, Patan, have copy), followed after c. 1666 by his son... I guess we can start a discussion about the nature of the main deity, Taleju... On her introduction into the Valley see: Zur Geschichte der Rajopadhayas von Bhaktapur. Folia Rara. Festschrift W. Voigt, ed. by H. Franke et al., Wiesbaden 1976, pp. 155-175 -- and of course, Robert Levy, Mesocosm, but minus the Skt story (turyadevyaagamanakathaa). In fact, I do not remember a single king in Nepal (maybe apart from W. Malla?) who claimed to have been a "Buddhist" -- rather, they followed the old adage that I have seen in many versions now: "Are you Hindu or Buddhist?" Answer: "Yes" >Sanskritization, as the term is applied to Nepal, seems to me a very >blunt instrument..... sort of religious >eclecticism seems to have been common practice after the Palas - the >Western Mallas did a fine job of supporting Saiva cult sites. Right, and yet even the "Buddhist" Palas had Atharvan priests, as Rajagurus, I think (inscr. of c. 1100 CE) . I think we must see all of this more like modern Thailand: both Hinduism and Buddhism are represented at the court. See above. Kashmir always supplies excellent materials (see summary : The Brahmins of Kashmir. In: Ikari, Y. (ed.) A study of the Nilamata - Aspects of Hinduism in Ancient Kashmir -. Kyoto: Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University 1994, 237-294 ) > in response to their political situation, the >14th century Maithili Brahmins .... >imposed a rather foreign division of religions on the court. Is this >'Sanskritization'? Is it so strict? See above... Someone (forget who) is now working on the Maithila imports. It seems that the story is to some extent concocted, only in 1820. Anyhow, Wright's Vamsavali which talks about them, has many interpolations (hope T. Riccardi is coming out with them now) >We would have to use the same term to describe the >process, complete before 1000, whereby local monsoon rituals were >absorbed into the Vajrayana cult of Amoghapasa; but these Maithili >Brahmins would have excluded those same rituals as part of their defense >of 'orthodox' Sanskritic culture. Right, (but isn't it Lokes'vara?), and this mixed Tib.-Burm. rain (Bunga Dyo) cum Lokes'vara cult was later turned into a Hindu Macchendranath one (as another KTM Jesuit, J. Locke, has documented in 1982 or so: Karunamaya). Even the "staunch" Kanphata Yogi Naraharinath printed the Lokes'vara stotras as "Macchendranath" ones, including & preserving the name Lokes'vara! As some may know, the king still has to come to witness the exhibition of the Bhoto (jacket) during the yearly Macchendranath-(ratha)-jatra, at the Bhoto Jatra festival. >Of course, until the late 18th century the majority of the population in >the valley were Buddhist, and their scholars produced significant >original Sanskrit texts well into the 18th century... Right, and ritual handbooks until today -- Only, I wonder about the numbers. Nobody did a headcount. (There is however a nice household count from Bhaktapur of c. 1700 CE, unpublished of course). But, the number of Viharas will tell: Bhaktapur has only 4, Kathmandu "officially" 18, and Patan many times that much (see J. Locke, and N. Gutschow). Well, an endless topic... I wish people would dig through the c. 24,000 Govt. MSS (of which c. 1700 old palmleaf mss) and the several times more private MSS, all filmed by the NGMPP, see: http://www.uni-hamburg.de/Wiss/FB/10/IndienS/NGMPP/index.html There still are untold discoveries to be made there, for Buddhism, Shivaism, -- and even the Vedas : the oldest Veda MSS are ... from the KTM Valley! See my forthc. summary in the "felicitation" volume of the NGMPP, to be out later this year in JNRC (Journal of the Nepal Research Centre) . Will, nice to have a real discussion with a knowledgeable person in this field. This was what this and the past INDOLOGY list were meant for, after all... Cheers, MW> PS> Coronation (raajyaabhiSeka) photo of the lamented King Birendra (Feb. 24, 1975), at: http://dailynews./h/p/nm/20010607/wl/imdf07062001075145a.html My Mimamsa teacher, the late Jununath Pandit (Nayab Guruju then, with yellow cap and dress, standing in foreground) is seen between King Gyanendra and Queen Komal. ======================================================== Michael Witzel Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University 2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138, USA ph. 1- 617-496 2990 (also messages) home page: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm Elect. Journ. of Vedic Studies: http://nautilus.shore.net/~india/ejvs/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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