Bāhunvāda: Myth or Reality?
After 25 years of persevering belligerence, Prithvi Narayan Shah conquered the three cities of the Kathmandu Valley in 1769. One year later, on 23 March, he shifted his capital to newly occupied Kathmandu. With his court came his kinsmen, retinue, priests and soldiers — the new aristocracy of the hill region — to settle permanently in Kathmandu. They symbolised what Nepal's leading economic historian Mahesh C. Regmi calls "a shift of political and economic power". Among them were the thar-ghar, the chosen and select families of hill brahmins such as Aryal, Khanal, Pandey and Panta who were rewarded with the best lands and houses in the Valley as their jagirs in return for their services to the Gorkhali court in war and peace. Thus begins the success story of the parbate Bahuns, the brahmins from the hills.
After 25 years of persevering belligerence, Prithvi Narayan Shah conquered the three cities of the Kathmandu Valley in 1769. One year later, on 23 March, he shifted his capital to newly occupied Kathmandu. With his court came his kinsmen, retinue, priests and soldiers — the new aristocracy of the hill region — to settle permanently in Kathmandu. They symbolised what Nepal's leading economic historian Mahesh C. Regmi calls "a shift of political and economic power". Among them were the thar-ghar, the chosen and select families of hill brahmins such as Aryal, Khanal, Pandey and Panta who were rewarded with the best lands and houses in the Valley as their jagirs in return for their services to the Gorkhali court in war and peace. Thus begins the success story of the parbate Bahuns, the brahmins from the hills.