Documenta Nepalica

Documents on the History of Religion and Law of Pre-modern Nepal

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A receipt for the ṭīkābheṭ levy offered to the generals of Thāpāthalī (VS 1918)

ID: E_2778_0047

Edited and translated by Astrid Zotter
Created: 2018-06-18; Last modified: 2018-11-26
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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, 2018. 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

Abstract

This document acknowledges the receipt of 15 rupees as ṭīkābheṭ offered on the occasion of Baḍādasaĩ by the officers of the Jagaddala Palṭana to the six generals of Thāpāthalī.

Diplomatic edition

[1r]

[?]

1श्रीजगद्दल•
2२

1श्रीजनरलसाहेव•
2१

[unknown seal]

1[?]र्पाईदादै•श्रीलेफ्‌टेंटकर्णैल्‌लालसिंषतृआगे•थापाथली ¯ ¯१¯ ¯ हरू
2जना६लाई• ¯ ¯२¯पल्टन्‌कापगरीहरूलेवडादसैंकोठीकाभेट्‌चर्‍हा
3याकोमोहररूपैयापंध्र•१५वहीदारहंसवीरहस्तेमसँगदाषिलभ
4यो•तस्कोभर्पा इलेषीदिञाँ¯¯¯¯¯¯

[table1]

तपसील्‌•¯¯

1	लेफ्‌टेन्‌	गंभीरसिंगुरूं	कोरू	१
2	इन्सायेन्‌	शिवलालऐं	कोरू	१
3	मेजरअजिटन्‌	दलभंजनथापा	कोरू	१
4	षरीदार	लक्ष्मीभक्तउपाध्याय•	कोरू	१
5	सुवेदारजना१०मध्येषाली१वाकी९		कोरू•	९
6	कोत्या•		को•रू	१
7	राईटर•		कोरू	१
8				१५

5इतिसम्वत्‌१९१८सालमितिआश्वीनसुदि१४रोज५शुभम•¯ ¯ ¯

Translation

[1r]

Śrī

Venerable Jagaddala – 2

Venerable General Sāhebas – 1

Receipt (bharpāīdādai); [issued to] venerable Lieutenant Colonel Lāla Siṃ Khatṛ.

Āge: Fifteen, [in numbers] 15, mohararūpaiyā̃s offered as the Baḍādasaĩṭīkābheṭ by the officers (pagarī) of the [venerable Jagaddala]1 Palṭan to the 6 [General Sāhebas]2 of Thāpāthalī, was delivered into the hands of3 BahīdāraHaṃsavīra. He issued a receipt for it.

[table]

Particulars (tapasila)

Lieutenant Colonel	Gaṃbhīra Siṃ Gurūṃ	Rs	1
Ensign	Śiva Lāla Gurūṃ	Rs	1
Adjutant Major	Dalabhaṃjana Thāpā	Rs	1
Kharidāra	Lakṣmībhakta Upādhyāya	Rs	1
9 subedāras; of 10 only one remaining		Rs	9
The kote		Rs	1
The raīṭara		Rs	1
			15

Thursday, the 14th of the bright fortnight of the month of Āśvina in the [Vikrama] era year 1918 (1861 CE). Auspiciousness.

Commentary

The document concerns the submission of the ṭīkābheṭ (or ṭīkābheṭī), a levy that was to be paid on the occasion of the autumnal Dasaĩ festival by military and civil officials to the central authority (cf. Regmi 1983; Zotter 2018: 508, referring to NGMPP DNA 2/81, lines 13–18). The typical sum of 1 Rs per head is mentioned both here and in other documents (cf. DNA_0002_0020; DNA_0004_0084; Regmi 1971: 192; Regmi 1984: 132). At the beginning of the 20th century the rate seems to have increased. Thus Regmi (1983: 14) quotes an arrangement valid from 1929 onwards with rates of Rs 16 for the commander-in-chief, 12 Rs for high officers, and 3 Rs for others. These sums went to the reigning king, his queens, the queen mothers (i.e. legitimate wives of the king's father), and princes and princesses according to a fixed scheme (ibid.: 12–13). Interestingly, the present document, pertaining to the levy paid by officers of an army unit, stipulates the Thāpāthāli generals—that is, the heads of the Rāṇā family who were in command of the army—as receivers of the levy, not the royal family.

The names of other high officers mentioned in the text reveals their ethnic background as being Gurung (the lieutenant colonel and the ensign) and probably Magar (the Thāpā adjutant major), while the hierarchically lower-ranking post of secretary (kharidāra) was occupied by a Brahmin of Upādhyāya status. Such hierarchical schemes must have been a new phenomenon at that time. Previously officer ranks (called pagarī, denoting the ranks from subedāra on up; see Whelpton 1991: 239 n. 103) were reserved for members of the Indo-Nepalese upper castes (Thakuri, Khas and Brahmin), while Magar and Gurung could serve in the lower ranks only (ibid.: 208–210). This development seems to have been connected with the creation of new military posts. According to Hamal (1995: 32) the posts of general and colonel were added under Bhīmasena Thāpā with a general being in command of the kampus stationed in Kathmandu and the colonels commanding the forces outside the Valley. Whelpton (1991: 210), dealing with Jaṅga Bahādura's recruitment strategy for the army, pins down the opening up of the rank of colonel to Magars and Gurungs to a lālamohara issued in 1863 (ibid.: 210). The creation of the rank of lieutenant colonel, immediately below a colonel (cf. Adhikari 1984: 161 table VII), had been a recent introduction under Jaṅga Bahādura (Whelpton 1991: 208). As the present document shows, Gurungs could rise to that rank already in 1861.

The palṭana named in the document, Jagaddala, could be the "Jagdal" regiment, which is known to have existed around this time. Hamal (1995: 44) lists it among those formed between 1847 and 1881 but later dissolved. Adhikari (1984: 156 table IV) places it among regiments existing in 1863. Regmi (1979: 83) puts the "Jagadal Paltan" among the units forming the "Rajadal Kampu" in 1910. If this Jagdal or Jagadal is indeed identical with the present document’s Jagaddala, it must therefore have been raised between 1847 and 1861 and must have existed at least until 1910.

Notes

1. Inserted from the space numbered 2 above. [⇑]

2. Inserted from the space numbered 1 above. This is most probably a reference to the six leading positions in the Rāṇā Roll of Succession, established by Jaṅga Bahādura in 1856 and revised in 1860 and 1868 (Kumar 1967: 66–77). It included 1) the Prime Minister and Commander-in-Chief, 2) the Commander-in-Chief General, 3) the Senior Commanding General of the Western Command and 4)–6) the three Commanding Generals of the Eastern, Southern and Northern Commands. According to Jaṅga Bahādura's last revision of 1868, apart from himself and three of his brothers—Raṇoddīpa Siṃha, Jagat Śamśera Jaṅga and Dhīra Śamśera—it included his two eldest sons, Jagat Jaṅga Bahādura and Jita Jaṅga Bahādura (ibid.: 70–71). At the time of issue of the present document, Jaṅga Bahādura's brother Kṛṣṇa Bahādura, who died in 1863, must have figured before Raṇoddīpa Siṃha as the second in the roll. Kṛṣṇa Bahādura became prime minister after his brother Bam Bahādura's death in 1857, while after Jaṅga Bahādura reassumed premiership some months later he still held the post of Commander-in-Chief General (Whelpton 1991: 195–196). [⇑]

3. The reading hastemasãga may be a conflation of Skt. hastena and Nep. hāthasãga, both meaning "by/through/with the hand". Though this might be interpreted as pointing to the bahīdāra as the one who delivered the levy, it is here assumed that he was the accountant who received the sum and issued the receipt. If understood as standing for hastemāsãga the double postposition could denote that the money was put "into" (-mā) his hand by the lt. col., and "with" (sãga) that hand he was to deliver it to the generals. [⇑]

Word	Notes
āge	[fr. S. agre] adv. lit. "henceforeward" (Riccardi 1976: 150 n. 6), especially used in administrative and legal documents to mark the beginning of a text or paragraph. In its function it is similar to uprānta.
baḍā dasaĩ	var. baḍā dasai; also mahā dasaĩ; n. festival to worship the goddess Durgā as slayer of the buffalo demon, held over the bright half of the autumn month of Āśvina. Cf. dasaĩ / daśaĩ.
bahīdāra / baidāra	var. bahidāra; n. lit. "record-keeper". 1) accountant, clerk, scribe; civil functionary entrusted with writing official documents, ranking above the nausindā (cf. Adhikari 1984: 345; Parājuli et al. 1995). 2) a military functionary (cf. Kumar 1967: 164).
bharpāīdādai	phrase to formally mark the beginning of a receipt.
dasaĩ / daśaĩ	[fr. S. daśāha] var. dasai; n. festival to worship the goddess Durgā as slayer of the buffalo demon, held over the bright half of the autumn month of Āśvina (baḍā dasaĩ) and, on a smaller scale, over the bright half of the spring month of Caitra (caite dasaĩ).
kampu	[from E.] var. kaṃpu; n. 1) “regular army“ (Adhikari 1984: 351); the Kampu Daphadarakhānā was responsible for dealing with land assignments for the kampu (Whelpton 1991: 283). However, the exact structure of the kampu still remains obscure. 2) one of three categories of army units in the early 19th century, the other two being palṭana and kampanī or company (Hamal 1995: 33). A kampu comprised different palṭanas (M.C. Regmi 1979). According to Hamal (1995: 32), however, in the early 19th century those companies stationed in the Kathmandu Valley and under the command of the general were called kampu, while those outside palṭana.
kharadāra / kharidāra	[fr. P.] var. kharīdāra, ṣaridāra; n. secretary, official scribe, office superintendent (cf. Kumar 1967: 166).
kote	var. kotyā, koṭe; n. officer in charge of arms and ammunition, headman of porters in the army (Adhikari 1984: 352).
lālamohara	var. lālmohara, lālamohar, lālmohora; abbreviated mohara; n. royal document bearing the red seal.
mohararupaiyā̃	var. mohararupaiyām, mohararūpaiyā, moharaṭaṃkā (New.); often abbreviated as moru, morū, moharu, moharū, moharru, mohorru; n. monetary unit based on and equivalent to two eight-anna silver coins (moharas); in calculations usually broken down into four sukās, 16 ānās or 64 paisās (cf. Pant and Pierce 1989: 93) or 256 dāmas; the exchange ratio with paisās was calculated differently at different times and in different parts of the kingdom, depending on the relative values of silver and copper, ranging between 52 and 80 paisās (Regmi 1982: 73). In documents sums are represented in four numerical fractions, with the rupaiyā represented by numbers; the sukās by one to three daṇḍas or the avagraha sign representing zero; the ānās by one to three diagonal dashes, sometimes as a loop with two or three jags; the paisās again by daṇḍas or numbers; the dāmas by numbers or horizontal dashes.
pagarī	n. 1) turban, often given as a token of honor or as official appointment to office. 2) wearer of a turban of honor, thus 2a) general term for civil and military personnel (Adhikari 1984: 354); 2b) officer of higher rank (subedāra or above) (Whelpton 1991: 285); 2c) “Member of a Limbu village council in Pallokirat.“ (M.C. Regmi 1978: 863); 3) “an additional sum of rupees demanded from a winner of a court case in return for a turban (pagarī) accorded to him.“ (M.R. Pant 2002: 134; cf. pagarī-dastura).
palṭana	[fr. Eng. platoon] var. palṭan; n. regiment, battalion (Turner 1931: s.v. palṭan); army unit, according to Adhikari (1984: 158) smaller than a kampu. According to Hamal (1995: 32), in the early 19th century those companies stationed in the Kathmandu Valley and under the command of the general were called kampu, while those outside palṭana. Commonly, however, both were known as palṭanas.
rāiṭara	[fr. E.] var. rāīṭara; n. administrative officer higher than the bahidāra, but lower than the mukhiyā.
sāheba / sāhaba	[fr. A. sāhib] n. 1) word to respectfully address a high-ranking person, sir. 2) master.
śrī	[S.] n. word of blessing, can be used as apprecatio, in which case it means 'good fortune' (Pant and Pierce 1989: 12), can be used as a prefix to names of persons and gods, in which case it means 'venerable' or 'glorious' respectively. The number of śrīs used varies, depending on context.
subedāra	n. commander of a military company (cf. M.C. Regmi 1999: 137) consisting of 100 soldiers (N.R. Pant et al. 1969: 383), often placed in charge of a district (M.R. Pant 2002: 136; M.C. Regmi 1978: 229). According to Stiller (1981: 382), he is [below the subbā] the second highest commissioned officer, and, according to Whelpton (1991: 286), he is immediately senior to the jamadāra.
tapasila	[fr. A.] var. tapasīl, tapasīlā, tapsīl; n. particulars, details; can be a self-sustained document, but is more often appended as a list after the narratio of documents.
ṭīkābheṭ / ṭīkābheṭī	var. ṭikābheṭa, ṭīkābheṭa; a levy to be paid by civil and military officials on occasion of Dasaĩ (M.C. Regmi 1988: 271). The levy was abolished together with others with effect from Bhadra 1, 2008 (August 16, 1951) (M.C. Regmi 1983: 11, citing the Nepal Gazette Vol. 1.9 of Ashwin 15, 2008 (October 1, 1951)). See also ṭiko, ṭīkā.