The ancient history of Nepal is not well-known. Was it influenced only by India and China or did it have its own culture? Who are the Newar people?
The indigenous people of the Nepal Valley – also known as the Kathmandu Valley – are the Newar, who still live throughout the country to this day. The Newars speak a type of Tibeto-Burman language similar to neighbours in Yunnan province of China to the east and also some peoples in Tibet. However, the Newars have spent thousands of years living next to the Indian peoples and have absorbed many institutions and traditions from the Indian culture. Consequently, Newar people have a complex caste system and a variety of Hindu and Buddhist beliefs. After all, it is in southern Nepal at Lumbini that the historical Lord Buddha was born, probably in 560 BCE.
It is difficult to reconstruct early Nepalese history about from pointing out that contact with the Gangetic Plain of India has been evident for thousands of years. To the north, the valley gives way to Himalayan hills and eventually the mountains that separate Nepal from China and Tibet. The mountains are difficult terrain but not impossible to navigate and there are many records of early contacts with the Chinese court. However, the emergence of Tibet as a powerful state able to fight against and beat China meant the end of contacts across the mountains (there is more about Tibet here: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/east_asian_history/105495).
The emergence of the Licchavi Dynasty in about 110 CE represents a more certain period of history. The Licchavi people had settled in the region up to six hundred years previously and had established their capital at a city called Vaisali. They were well-known for their Republican form of government which was based on a federation of tribal heads, known as the Vajjian Confederacy. The heads of the great Kshatriya or military-caste families were eligible to join the general assembly of the Licchavi people. The history of the Licchavi Dynasty is told in the many large stone monuments which dot the landscape of the region and are dated to approximately 500-700 CE. Rulers of the Federation were always keen to claim that they were of good Newar or indigenous stock but were more likely to have derived from the north Indian plains, which is probably the first time that the valley of Nepal came under direct Indian influence. It was during this period that Nepal’s connections with China were at their highest point and it helped the land attain a level of cultural sophistication and advancement that made it the envy of many Indians.
The Licchavi Dynasty persisted throughout the next centuries, content to rule on the basis of the Brahmanic Hindu rites but not seeing it necessary to impose these on their people who were not believers. This level of tolerance, together with the fact that Nepal became a bit of a backwater, kept the people relatively safe from oppression and predators during this period.
John Walsh, Shinawatra University, March 2007
