An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal: And of the Territories Annexed to this Dominion by the House of GorkhaHamilton, Francis
History
An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal: And of the Territories Annexed to this Dominion by the House of Gorkha
Hamilton, Francis
Nepal -- Description and travel; Nepal -- History
The Rajputs that are, or that even pretend to be, descended of the colony
which came from Chitaur, are very few in number; but the families of the
mountain chiefs, who have adopted the Hindu rules of purity, and even
some who have neglected to do so, are now universally admitted to be
Rajputs; and the Chitaur family have so often married the daughters of
the former, that several members of it have acquired the Tartar
countenance, while some of the mountain families, by intermarriages with
pure but indigent Rajputs, have acquired oval faces and high noses. Not
only the colony, therefore, from Chitaur, if the Palpa family be such,
but all the descendants of the hill chiefs, are now called Rajputs; and,
until the absorption of all power in the Gorkha family, the Rajputs held
all the principal civil and military offices of the petty states into
which the country was subdivided. It would also appear, that, when the
princes of the mountaineers were persuaded to follow the doctrines of the
Brahmans, many of their subjects or clans were induced to follow the
example of their chiefs, and thus have established tribes called Thapas,
Ghartis, Karkis, Majhis, Basnats, Bishtakos, Ranas, and Kharkas, all of
whom are called Khasiyas, or natives of Khas, but they wear the thread,
and live pure like Kshatris, and, in fact, are included among the
fencibles or military power of the country, and are very much employed in
the government of the family of Gorkha, under which some of them enjoy
the highest dignities of the state; for Bhim Sen, who is now vested with
the whole power of the kingdom, is by birth a Thapa, as is also Amar
Singha Karyi, who commands the army beyond the Yamuna. Among those
called Khasiyas, thus adopted into the military order, there may be many
others, of which I did not hear; but it would not appear, even when they
adopted fully the rules of purity, that the whole of these tribes
obtained so elevated a rank, which is almost equal to that of the sacred
bastards. The Thapas, for instance, are of two kinds, Khas and Ranggu;
yet the latter, although they live pure, and have pure Brahmans to give
them instruction, and to perform their ceremonies, are not permitted to
wear the military badge, nor to intermarry with those who enjoy this
privilege. The Ghartis, also, are of two kinds, Khas and Bhujal. The
former are admitted to the military dignity; but the latter wallow in all
the abominations of the impure Gurungs, and do not speak the Khas
language. The Ranas, also, are divided into two kinds, the Khas and
Magar. The latter are a branch of the Magar tribe, and totally neglect
the rules of Hindu purity. It is not even, as I have said, all the
Rajputs that have adopted the rules of purity, and some branches of the
same families were pure, while others rejected the advice of the sacred
order, and eat and drank whatever their appetites craved.
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