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A copy of a lālamohara from King Rājendra appointing Tārānātha Arjyāla as caretaker of the guṭhī attached to Gorkha's dasaĩghara (VS 1876)

ID: K_0015_0022B


Edited and translated by Astrid Zotter in collaboration with Pabitra Bajracharya
Created: 2019-09-04; Last modified: 2023-03-01
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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, 2020. 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

This copy of a lālamohara from the king, who according to the date must have been Rājendra, appoints Tārānātha Arjyāla as caretaker of a guṭhī of the main deity of the dasaĩghara of Gorkha together with its landholdings at Purkoṭa.



Diplomatic edition

[1r]

1पो­१४­व­१२­पा­९९­सी­५२३­

1१९८­

1प्रोहीत्याई­
2भं­नौ­हर्ष­
3हे­नौ­वासु­

1आगे­तारानाथ­प्रोहित­अर्ज्यालेके­∙रणसुर­थापाको­खाये़ल्‌­गोर्खा­दसौघरका­∙
2श्री­५­मुलदेवताको­गुठ­पुर्कोट­थुम­∙१­षेत­तस्को­लगापाट­∙पाखोरेखो­लगाय़त­
3स्मेत­लालमोहर­गरिवक्स्यौं­आफ्ना­खातिरज्मासंग­व़र्ष­प्रति­२४­अष्टमी­
4विसेष­महाष्टमी­∙चैत्राष्टमी∙को­काज­तामापत्र­∙लाल­सव़ालमा­भन्या­∙
5वमोजींको­काम्‌­चलाई­गुठको­अक्तीआरी­∙भै­∙गुठ­चलाई­हाम्रो­जय़­मनाई­
6सुष­भोग्य़­गर­१८७६­साल­∙मार्ग­वडि­२­रोज­३­सुभ­¯¯¯ ¯¯¯

Translation

[1r]

[In the left margin:]

Bundle (po[kā]) 14, va 12, pā 99, sī 523 1

1982

[Concerning] a purohityāī̃

The one who said [was] the nau[sindā]Harṣa.3

The one who watched [was] the nausindāBāsu.

Āge: To Tārānātha Prohita Arjyāla

We [herewith] issue a lālamohara and confer [upon you] Raṇasura Thāpā's property holdings (khāyel): the guṭha of the fivefold glorious main deity of Gorkhā's dasaĩghara [consisting of] the 1 thuma of Purkoṭa [including] irrigated land (kheta) together with surrounding land (lagāpāṭa), i.e. a range of hillside land (pākhorekho) and so on. Being mindful of your duties, perform the tasks related to the 24 aṣṭamī days every year, especially those of Mahāṣṭamī and Caitrāṣṭamī, carrying out the work according to what is stated in the copperplate, lāla[mohara]4 and directives (savāla). Operate the guṭha as its caretaker (akhtiyārī), celebrate our triumphs and enjoy [the attendant fruits] happily.

Tuesday,5 the 2nd of the dark fortnight of Mārga in the [Vikrama era] year 1876 (4 November 1819).6 Auspiciousness.


Commentary

The present document has to do with the management of the guṭhī related to the dasaĩghara at Gorkha Palace. This guṭhī was established by the king's grandmother, Kāntavatī Devī, in VS 1856 (1799 CE) and controlled 1,300 murīs of land at Purkoṭa in the district of Tanahu (see K_0120_0020).

The present lālamohara appoints Tārānātha Arjyāla to manage the guṭhī and to function as its akhtiyārī. According to the Sanskrit text of the copperplate (K_0120_0020), where the post is called adhikārī, this person would have to protect the guṭhī land at Purkoṭa and see to it that the items specified in the corresponding dānapatra (reissued in VS 1942 after having become unreadable; see K_0120_0024) were provided from its produce and brought to the dasaĩghara at Gorkha. Furthermore, he would have to inform state authorities in case the items could not for some reason be provided.

The categorization of the copy in the filing ledger as a purohītāī suggests that Tārānātha Arjyāla had also been appointed as the priest. This is not necessarily the case, even if he is called a purohita in the document and his surname Arjyāla points to a family background of royal house-priests.7 His predecessor as akhtiyārī of the guṭhī, however, Raṇasura Thāpā, would unlikely have been a purohita. In the modern assignment of roles serving the deity of the dasaĩghara at Gorkha Palace, the mūlapurohita is a Bhaṭṭarāī Brahmin who comes for this occasion from Kathmandu, while the Arjyālas are involved in the fire sacrifice as hotus and ācāryas (Unbescheid 1996: 107). Ten members from the Thāpā family who are Magars act as bāhiryā susāres, "servants in the outer realm" (ibid.: 108). It is unknown how the ritual tasks were organized at the time the present document was issued and the extent to which the manager of the Purkoṭa Guṭhi, responsible for providing the ritual accessories, also had a say in appointing ritual specialists.

If the Tārānātha Arjyāla appointed in the present document is identical with the person of the same name who later, at least from the late 1830s on, became the royal treasurer (khajāncī) and who remained in this post until 1845,8 the present document would attest to one of the early rungs of his career ladder.

Notes

1. While the first abbreviation, po, probably stands for pokā ("bundle") it remains unclear what words the following va, pā and sī are abbreviations of. That these indeed are abbreviations is clear from preceding entries, where the same syllables are followed by a dot. [⇑]

2. This number refers to the place of the document in the government ledger, archived as BK 9, whose entries were microfilmed sequentially from K_0014_0019 (front cover and index) up to K_0015_0044D. The bound material covers the main body (i.e. excluding the initial and final formalities) of 282 lālamoharas from the period VS 1868–1885 that pertain to guṭhī affairs. [⇑]

3. The abbreviation bhaṃ stands for bhanne and nau probably for nausindā. This and the following line state the names of the clerks involved in copying the documents or in checking whether copies were true to originals. Similar marginal notes are also attested in other documents (cf. K_0013_0020B to K_0013_0033E), where sometimes the verbal forms are given unabridged (e.g. K_0031_0019C). The two functions distinguished are bhanne, "saying/telling" (i.e. probably reading it back out loud) and herne "watching" (i.e. probably looking over what was written as it was being read out loud). [⇑]

4. A scribal omission might have occured in this place when the copy was made. Whereas mohara as shorthand for lālamohara is common, the use of lāla is not. [⇑]

5. This must be a scribal mistake. In the said year the 2nd of the dark fortnight of Mārga fell on a Thursday. Accordingly, the copies following the present one in the ledger rightly give 5 as the number denoting the weekday. [⇑]

6. The reigning king in whose name the original lālamohara must have been issued was Rājendra. [⇑]

7. There are two sub-groups of Arjyāla Brahmins, known as Bagālyā/Bagāle (Bengali?) and Bihāryā/Bihāre (Bihari), both of them being among the four hereditary purohita families appointed in the 19th of the edicts ascribed to King Rāma Śāha, the former to serving as hotus and the latter as ācāryas (Riccardi 1977: 57). [⇑]

8. The first document known so far in which he signed a lālamohara as mārphat, most likely as the khajāncī, dates from 1837 (DNA_0011_0106). This title appears in documents from 1838 on (E_2779_0020–E_2779_0024). In 1845 he was followed in office by Umākānta Upādhyāya (Regmi 1984: 64). [⇑]