Documenta Nepalica

Published by Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities: Documents on the History of Religion and Law of Pre-modern Nepal, Heidelberg, Germany, 2017. Published by the courtesy of the National Archives, Kathmandu. The copyright of the facsimile remains with the Nepal Rashtriya Abhilekhalaya (National Archives, Government of Nepal). All use of the digital facsimiles requires prior written permission by the copyright holder. See Terms of Use.
The accompanying edition, translation/synopsis and/or commentary are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License .

Commentary

In the original, use is made of lines of differing length to fill the space between the particulars of single entries in order to furnish proper columns. This typical format feature has been reproduced here by using a table.

This list refers to the buffalo sacrifices performed at the Mūlacoka (lit. "main courtyard") of the royal palace on occasion of the Mahānavamī of the autumnal Dasaĩ. That it refers to the Hanumānḍhokā palace can be inferred from the fact that many of the documents microfilmed on the same and neighboring reels concern affairs of the old royal palace of Kathmandu. Lists similar to the present one are extent from the years VS 1886 (E_2776_0001), 1900 (E_2775_0040), 1902 (E_2764_0036) and 1908 (E_2779_0005). As other documents (e.g. DNA_0002_0061) attest to, records of buffalo sacrifices had to be dispatched from major state temples and army units from throughout the country.

The list records the buffalos sacrificed with a running number, the name of the sacrificer, the number of hands and type of blade used. Moreover it is recorded whether the animal is decapitated with a single stroke or not. The terms in the second column must refer to certain types of buffaloes, as the term satāra occurs here. According to Unbescheid (1996: 120–125, passim) and Tingey (1997: 99) among the sacrificial animals at Gorkha palace the satāra (lit. "the big fat one"; in variance with Tingey and the present document, Unbescheid renders the term as satāhar) buffalo is a special one. It is the biggest of all and stands for Mahiṣāsura, the demon enemy of the goddess Durgā. A special tune, played during its sacrifice, highlights this act. In contradistinction to all other buffaloes, which should ideally be decapitated with a single stroke, this one has to be killed with three strokes.

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Notes