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E_3420_0014

Documenta Nepalica

Documents on the History of Religion and Law of Pre-modern Nepal
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A copy of a rukkā from King Raṇabahādura retaining land in the name of Ñũsehāṅ Rāī's descendants (VS 1852)

ID: E_3420_0014


Edited and translated by Julia Shrestha
Created: 2025-07-09; Last modified: 2025-12-08
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Published by Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities: Documents on the History of Religion and Law of Pre-modern Nepal, Heidelberg, Germany, 2025. 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 CCby-SA.

Abstract

In this copy of a rukkā, the king retains land in the name of Ñũsehāṅ Rāī's descendants, the rāīs of Pāñca Khapana, and pardons those of them who had fled but had since returned from abroad.


Diplomatic edition

[1r]

1१२­

1स्वस्ति­श्रीमन्माहाराजधिराजकस्य­रूक्का­
2आगे­ञुंसेहां­राईके­सन्तान­पाँच­षपन­राईराईके­
3हिजो­हालहुलमा­विरानु­देश­भागि­जान्या­जो­छौ­हिजो­छित­
4षुन­मुदहि­पिछाहि­माफ­गरिवक्स्याको­छ­आफ्ना­कुरा­कोदाला­
5ले­विह्रायाको­षेत­अपुतालि­वाजि­मिलो­आफ्नाआफ्ना­गाउँ­
6घडेरी­मकुवानि­राजाले­दियाको­थिति­ञाहा­वस्न्या­तम्रा­दाजु­
7भाईकन­पनि­थामिदियाको­छ­तिमि­पनि­अव­त्यो­सरह­तिमि­
8लाई­पनि­थामिवक्सौ­इति­सम्वत्‌­१८५२­साल­मिति­मार्ग­वदि­
9३०­रोज­६­शुभम् ‌­

1पछादि­¯मार्फत­अभिमल्ल­सिरुजु­
2काजि­त्रिभुवन­

Translation

[1r]

121

Hail! [This is] an executive order (rukkā) from the venerable supreme king of great kings.2

Āge: To the descendants of Ñũsehāṅ Rāī, the rāīs of Pāñca Khapana.3 [Those of] you who previously (lit. yesterday) during the turmoil fled to foreign lands have [hereby] been pardoned for [your] offences4 [and exempted from] mudahi [and] pichāhi taxes.5

[Your ancestors'] own matters, the fields cultivated with a mattock (kodālā), escheatable property (aputālī)6 and their own villages and lands suitable for building houses (ghaḍerī), granted [earlier] under an arrangement (thiti) sanctioned by the Makavāni king, have also [hereby] been confirmed for your brothers who remained here (i.e. did not flee).

We now grant that [same] to you, too, on an equal footing [with your brothers].

Friday, the 30th of the dark fortnight of Mārga in the [Vikrama era] year 1852 (1795 CE).7 Auspiciousness.

Backside: Through (mārphata) Abhimalla Siruju

Kāji Tribhuvana


Commentary

This document grants a pardon to rāī officers of the Pallo Kirāta area who had fled during earlier unrest and confirms their landholdings. At the time, rāī referred to a position of local authority among the Limbu of Pallo Kirāta (Limbuvān), having originated as a title bestowed by the Sen kings of Makwanpur upon their Kiranti ministers. Only later did it develop into an ethnonym for the Kiranti communities now collectively referred to as the Rai, who had settled primarily in the Vallo and Majha Kirāta regions (see Schlemmer 2010 on the historical evolution of ethnic labels in eastern Nepal).

Following the incorporation of Limbu territory into the Gorkhali kingdom—formalized through the Nūn-Pānī Sandhi of 1774 negotiated between Gorkha and Limbu chiefs (hangs)—some Limbu factions continued to resist the Gorkhalis (Warner 2021: para. 6). The reference to some turmoil or violent conflict (hālahula) in which the addressed rāīs fled to foreign lands likely pertains to the Sino-Gorkha War (1791–92), during which some Limbus fought for the Gorkhalis, while others allied with Chinese and Tibetan forces (ibid.: para. 7).

The present document is a much later copy transcribed into a modern paper notebook.

Notes

1. The number in the margin was likely added for archival purposes and is not used in the main body of the text. [⇑]

2. From the date of the document, the issuing king must have been Raṇabahādura Śāha (r. 1777–1799) [⇑]

3. The document writes "rāīrāī", a doubling that is likely meant as a plural. Based on the document's content the translation assumes that it addresses several individuals with rāī titles who were descendants of Ñũsehāṅ Rāī. [⇑]

4. The terms used are chita and khuna; while chita most probably pertains to illicit sexual relations (cf. khatchita, Gaborieau 1977: 253 n. 59, referencing Turner 1931 s.v. chitāhari "one who has committed incest"), khuna can refer to offences more broadly (cf. NBŚ 2075 has doṣ, i.e. offence, sin, crime, as a synonym of khuna). [⇑]

5. The pichāhi levy is attested in the context of western Nepal (Kumaon and Bheri-Mahakali; see linked glossary entry), where, among other instances, it is recorded as a tax levied in newly conquered territories. Although this region is geographically distant, such a levy could conceivably also have applied to Pallo Kirāta as a newly conquered area. [⇑]

6. Part of the text—vāji milo—remains unclear. The passage enumerates several nouns: khet, aputālī, gāũ, ghaḍeri. Aputālī, from Skt. a-putra ("sonless"), in Nepalese law denotes property—especially land—that passes to the king upon the death of a person without a male heir (Fezas 1986: 164–165). Milo could plausibly be a nominalization of milnu ("to meet, agree"), hence translatable as "agreement" or "consensus." Vāji, which can mean "turns" or "times" (NBŚ 2022: s.v. bāji), here might be a misspelling of vājbi, "appropriate" (Turner 1931: s.v. vājbi). Read together with aputālī, this would yield the conjectural sense of "[their own] appropriate consensus [regarding] aputālī." [⇑]

7. It is unusual for the tithi to be recorded as the 30th, as lunar months are normally divided into two fortnights of 15 tithis each (bright śukla and dark kṛṣṇa pakṣa). Here, it likely stands for the 15th tithi of the dark fortnight, consistent with the recorded 6th day of the week, corresponding to Friday, 11 December 1795 CE. [⇑]