Reading Guide to Nepalese History

 
[This is the text of my article in Himalaya, vol. XXV, nos.1-2, pp. 5-14, 2005 (actually date of publication 2007), as submitted to the publisher.  It includes the list of errata for the international edition of my History of Nepal as discovered up till 2007 and corrected in the second South Asian printing but not in the international edition.  I have now also added corrections for a few additional errors detected since then. The proofs of the Himalaya text (with photographs included) can be downloaded from the NEPALI page on this website (scroll down to the `Background reading on Nepali history and society' section). Among works published since 2007 and not already mentioned on the NEPALI page, I would particularly recommend Prashant Jha, Battles of the New Republic, Tom Bell, Kathmandu,  David Gellner, Sondra Hausner and Chiara Letizia (eds.), Religion, Secularism and Ethnicity in Contemporary Nepal, Sudheer Sharma,  The Nepal Nexus; the Inside Story of the Maoists, the Darbar and New Delhi, Hisila Yami, Hisila - from Revolutionary to First Lady, Amish Raj Mulmi, All Roads Lead North: Nepal's Turn to China and Michael Hutt, Mark Liechty and Stefanie Lotter (eds), Epicentre to Aftermath: Rebuilding and Remembering in the Wake of Nepal's Earthquakes, for all of which more details will be added later.]

This brief survey is intended as a list of works which I have found especially useful myself or which I think would be particularly suitable for readers wanting to follow up topics necessarily treated very cursorily in my recent one-volume History of Nepal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).  It includes some of the pre-1990 works listed in my earlier Nepal (World Bibliographical Series, Oxford & Santa Barbara: Clio Press, 1990) and, though it is intended principally for people who read English more comfortably than anything else, there is also some material in Nepali and in mainland European languages. I have given preference to items readily available in Western countries but some will only be found in specialist libraries. Particularly for the more recent periods there is a great problem of selection and omission of any particular work should certainly not be taken as a suggestion that it is any way inferior especially as often items are included simply because I had them to hand.  Bibliographies of the more recent works listed can easily be consulted for further reading, and there is extended discussion of many earlier studies in Krishna Kant Adhikari’s A Brief Survey of Nepali Historiography (Kathmandu: Buku, 1980). The most complete, readily accessible list of new titles is probably the Nepal entries in the catalogue of the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique in France. This can be consulted online at http://www.vjf.cnrs.fr/wwwisis/BIBLIO.02/form.htm
 
Basic narratives:There is no single book or series that can be regarded as an authoritative history of Nepal in the way that, for example, the Cambridge Ancient History or the Oxford History of England is accepted in the United Kingdom.  A conscious attempt to produce one was made with the Nepali-language Rastriya Itihas (National History) project begun by the Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies at Tribhuvan University in the 1980s. However, although this did result in the publication of a number of interesting studies, it was never completed on the ambitious lines originally intended.  The first attempt at a full-scale history of Nepal based on thorough analysis of all the available sources had been Sylvain Levi’s 3-volume Le Nepal – étude historique d’un rouyaume hindou (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1905, 1908), Although outdated in some ways, it still contains much of value and the first two volumes have been reprinted with an introduction by Marc Gaborieau and Gérard Toffin surveying research since the original publication (Paris; Le Toit du Monde, Editions Errance, 1985).  In English, Nepalese scholar and politician Dilli Rahman Regmi also set out to write a comprehensive account. His Ancient Nepal (3rd.ed., 1969), Medieval Nepal (1965-66) and Modern Nepal (1975),all published in Calcutta by Firma Mukhopadhyaya, are valuable as works of reference, but take the story down only to 1816 and are not very reader-friendly.
 
The reader in search of a good, general account has thus to rely on a number of disparate sources. For the prehistoric period, the most reliable guide is probably Gudrun Corvinus’s essay, `The Prehistory of Nepal after Ten Years of Research’ (in Ram Pratap Thapa & Joachim Baaden (eds.), Nepal: Myths and Realities, Delhi: Book Faith India, 2000). The best synthesis of information on the ancient and medieval periods is still Mary Slusser’s magnificent Nepal Mandala (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), which draws on the work of a number of Nepalese scholars who have published important research in Nepali. Whilst primarily a cultural history, the book contains a very good survey of political developments. Rishikesh Shaha’s Ancient and Medieval Nepal (New Delhi: Manohar, 1992) also gives a good overview for the general reader. For the modern period his 2-volume, the same author’s Modern Nepal –a Political History: 1769-1955 (New Delhi: Manohar, 1990) is indispensable, though, as its title indicates, containing little on economic or social development.  Shaha takes his story up to Tribhuvan’s death and for the last decade draws upon his own personal involvement and also on British embassy correspondence.
 
After 1955, one has to rely for a general narrative of events on more specialist studies, all of them similarly concentrating on the political. For developments up to the start of the Panchayat system, Bhuvan Lal Joshi and Leo Rose’s Democratic Innovations in Nepal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), intended primarily as an analysis of the clash between the nascent party system and traditional political behaviour, is the best single guide.  The book has recently been reprinted (Kathmandu: Mandala Bookpoint, 2004) and its continuing relevance to present-day Nepal is both testimony to the authors’ scholarship and a reminder that the contradictions they pinpointed remain unresolved. There is nothing as authoritative or as detailed for the Panchayat and post-Panchayat periods but the main framework of events is covered up to the1990s by three books all with a central focus on the 1990 `People’s Movement’. Louise Brown’s The Challenge to Democracy in Nepal (London, New York: Routledge, 1996) is sympathetic to the UML but stresses rapid disillusion with the political process after 1991. Martin Hoftun, William Raeper and John Whelpton’s People, Politics and Ideology (Kathmandu: Mandala, 1999) concentrates particularly on ideological issues and internal party disputes, whilst Karl-Heinz Krämer’s Nepal– der lange Weg zur Democratie (Bad Honnef: Horlemann, 1991) includes detail of many small-scale disturbances during the supposedly quiet Panchayat years. My own general history, which concentrates mainly on the post-Rana era and tries to cover other things as well as politics, goes up to early 2004. It also includes a timeline and a biographical appendix but its reliability as a reference work is reduced by a number of inaccuracies. Those discovered to date are listed at the foot of this page and I would be very grateful to hear if anyone unearths any more.
 
There is still no really satisfactory one-volume history of Nepal giving a balanced treatment of every period, discussing broad social and economic trends as well as conventional political history and also drawing on modern research in anthropology as well as in history and political science. I have not yet seen the latest edition of Netra Bahadur Thapa’s Short History of Nepal (Ratna Pustak Bhandar, 2001) but the earlier editions were a very sparse summary of political events and the book is difficult to get hold of in the West. Also difficult to find, but a much better piece of work, is Ludwig Stiller’s Nepal: Growth of a Nation (Kathmandu: Human Resources Development Research Center, 1993.  This summarises the author’s more detailed studies of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and presents a readable and well-documented account of the Rana period but does not go beyond 1951. My own book covers broader aspects of Nepalese society but the publisher was reluctant to include any pre- 1950 (and particularly pre-18th century) detail and the eventual compromise was a rather truncated account.
 
For economic history. the work of Mahesh Chandra Regmi, focussing particularly on the land tenure system, is fundamental. His most detailed contribution is his first extended publication, Land Tenure and Taxation in Nepal (Bekeley: University of California, 1963-8; reprint ed. (single volume) Kathmandu: Ratna Pustak Bhandar, 1978) but the general reader is best served by the summary of his findings in his Land Ownership in Nepal (Berkeley: University of California, 1976). Much less well-known, but useful for its treatment of the Nepalese economy from the earliest times down to the present is Lakshman B. Hamal’s Economic history of Nepal (From Antiquity to 1990) ( Kathmandu: Ganga Kaveri Publishing House, 1994).
 
Nepal’s precarious existence between the two Asian giants is a major theme in any account of the country’s past, but the best extended treatment is still Leo Rose’s superb Nepal: Strategy for Survival (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971). This shows how members of the political elite constantly manoeuvred both to maintain national independence and also to obtain external support against internal enemies.  Studies of Nepal-India relations tend to focus on relatively short periods but Vijay Manandhar has recently published A Comprehensive History of Nepal-China Relations Up to 1955 A.D. (New Delhi: Adriot, 2004). This is really more for the specialist, but others may be interested in the details on the Nepalese missions to China and the discussion of Nepal’s exact status in relation to the Chinese Empire.
 
Among the wealth of material on the service of Gurkhas/Gorkhas in the army of British India and then in the British and Indian armies, three are particularly worthy of mention. Mary K. DesChene’s. `Relics of Empire: a Cultural History of the Gurkhas 1815-1987' is a 1991 Stanford University PhD thesis which unfortunately has not been published though it is available from University Microfilms. This draws on interviews and archival research to provide a good account of the development of the Brigade[1] and of the differing perceptions of British officers and enlisted Nepalese. Lionel Caplan’s Warrior gentlemen: "Gurkhas" in the Western imagination (Oxford: Berghahn, 1995) covers similar ground to DesChene but focuses much more on British attitudes.  Tony Gould’s Imperial Warriors: Britain and the Gurkhas (London: Granta, 1999) is an excellent survey drawing both on the author’s own experiences and contacts as a Gurkha officer and on the analyses of social scientists like DesChene and Caplan. Prem R. Uprety’s Nepal – a Small Nation in the Vortex of International Conflicts.(Kathmandu: Pugo Mi, 1984) looks at the impact on Nepal of her involvement in the two world wars and in other conflicts through her alliance with British India and then with independent India.
 
Richard Burghart’s `The Formation of the Concept of Nation-State in Nepal', Journal of Asian Studies, vol.4(1), 1984, p.101-125), a classic study of the evolving way in which Nepal’s rulers saw their relationship to the land and its inhabitants, is republished in the author’s The Conditions of Listening: Essays on religion, history and politics in South Asia (Delhi: OUP, 1996) The evolution of national identity is also dealt with in several chapters of  David Gellner, Joanna Pfaf-Czarnecka and John Whlpton (ed.), Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom (Amsterdam: Harwood, 1997)
 
 Background studies
 
There are a number of very valuable studies of the environment and the human population’s changing relationship to it, which, whilst usually not histories in the conventional sense, give insight into key historical processes. In The Himalayan Dilemma – Reconciling Development and Conservation. (London: United Nations University/Routledge, 1989), which is also available on the web at http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80a02e/80A02E00.htm , J.D.Ives, and B. Messerli argue that much environmental degradation etc. is the result of long-term natural processes rather than of the activities of subsistence farmers. Environmental and development issues are included in Toni Hagen’s Nepal: the Kingdom in the Himalayas (repr. ed. Kathmandu: Himal Books, 2000).  First published in 1961, this is a lavish illustrated general introduction to the country including a detailed account of stages in the formation of the Himalayas. The reprint edition includes an account of changes since the first visit to the country by the author, a Swiss national who conducted a geological survey of Nepal in the early 1950s and later helped set up the carpet industry. Barry Bishop’s Karnali under stress: livelihood strategies and seasonal rhythms in a changing Nepal Himalaya. (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1990) mainly focuses on conditions in the 1960s but includes an excellent summary of the development of Parbatiya society in the western hills from early times. Lionel Caplan’s Land and Social Change in Eastern Nepal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970; repr. ed. Kathmandu: Himal Books, 2000) describes how Brahman settlers gradually became the main landowners on land previously held by the Limbus under communal tenure. Based on fieldwork in Ilam, it illustrates a transformation that occurred, with local variations, over much of the country.  Alan Macfarlane’s Resources and Population: a study of the Gurungs of Nepal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976) focuses on a group who were not displaced by outsiders but beset by the pressure of rising numbers. This is a Malthusian account, still of value although the author now admits he failed to allow for the safety valve provided by migration to the towns and for remittance income. The `population explosion’ and possible explanations for it, is also the topic of Mark Poffenberger’s rather more general but succinct account, Patterns of Change in the Nepal Himalaya (Delhi: Macmillan, 1980).  In Resunga: the Mountain of the Horned Sage, (Kathmandu: HIMAL Books, 2000), P.Ramirez and his French anthropologist colleagues survey the present condition and earlier history of Argha-Kanchi district and adjacent areas in the hills southwest of Pokhara. Another local history of wider relevance is Stanley F. Stevens’ Claiming the high ground: Sherpas, subsistence and environmental change in the highest Himalaya. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
 
Other works focus on the origins of the country’s linguistic and ethnic diversity. George van Driem’s 2-volume Languages of the Himalayas: an Ethnolinguistic Handbook of theHimalayan Region (Handbook of Oriental studies: Section 2 (India), vol.10, Leiden: Brill, 2001) is an encylopaedic compendium on all languages spoken in the Himalaya. It includes speculative but fascinating discussion of the origins of the different language families and of possible migration routes.  Some of his main suggestions are summarised in my review (Studies in Nepali History and Society 9(1), 2004, p.193-205). An older, but still useful contribution is Marc Gaborieau’s Le Népal et ses Populations (Brussels: Editions Complexes, 1978), which combines a good treatment of ethnic groups and their relationship under the state-sanctioned caste system with a sketch of Nepalese history. Also valuable is John Hitchcock’s `An Additional Perspective on the Nepali Caste System' (in James F. Fisher (ed.), Himalayan Anthropology, The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1978), suggesting why the structure in the Nepalese hills differed significantly from that in the Indian Himalayas west of the Mahakali.
 
The Ancient and Medieval Periods (to 1769)
 
Some of the most important primary sources, originally written in Sanskrit, Newari or Nepali, are available in English.  Translations of the 5th to 8th century Licchavi inscriptions, the earliest extant records from Nepal, are given in the second part of Dilli Rahman Regmi’s 3-volume Inscriptions of Ancient Nepal (Delhi: Abhinav, 1983). Text and translation of a 14th. century chronicle, the oldest found in the Kathmandu Valley, are provided in Dhanavajra Vajracharya & Kamal Prakash Malla’s The Gopalarajavamsavali (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1985). One Buddhist-orientated chronicle from among the later, Nepali-language accounts of the pre-unification period, also covering the modern period down to 1838, was translated by two pandits attached to the British Residency and published in Daniel Wright’s History of Nepal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1877). Translations of other chronicles included in the British Library’s Hodgson’s Papers are published in Vikram Hasrat’s The History of Nepal as Told by its Own and Contemporary Chroniclers. (Hoshiarpur: V.V.Research Institute, 1970).
 
Theodore Riccardi Jr summarizes the little which archaeology has so far revealed about the history of the Valley before the Licchavis in Siegfried Lienhard’s Continuity and change: studies in the Nepalese culture of the Kathmandu Valley (Alessandria, Italy: Edizioni dell'Orso, 1996). Evidence from river names is examined by Michael Witzel in `Nepalese hydronomy: towards a history of settlement in the Himalayas’ (Gérard Toffin (ed), Nepal: Past and Present: Proceedings of the France-German conference, Arc- et-Senans, June1990. New Delhi: Sterling, 1993). Clues to migration patterns are found in the distribution of plough types in P. Dollfus, M.Lecomte-Tilouine and O.Aubriot’s `Un araire dans la tête - réflexions sur la répartition géographique de l'outil en Himalaya", Techniques & Cultures, n.37 (2001), pp. 3-50
 
An interesting interpretation of the Licchavi period is Prayag Raj Sharma’s `The land system of the Licchavis of Nepal’ (Kailash, 1983, vol. 10 (1-2), p 11-62), which is republished in his The State and Society in Nepal : Historical Foundations and Contemporary Trends (Kathmandu: Himal Books, 2004). The discovery of a statue of the Lichhavi ruler. apparently pushing epigraphic evidence for the dynasty back from the 5th century to the 2nd. century A.D, is discussed in Kashinath Tamot & Ian Alsop’s `A Kushan Period Sculpture from the Reign of Jaya Varma - 184/185 A.D., Kathmandu, Nepal.’  (Asian Art, 10 July 1996 , with updated text at http://www.asianart.com/articles/jaya/index01_12.html). Broad questions of interpretation for the Lichhavi and earlier periods are also dealt with in Kamal Prakash Malla’s `Epigraphy and Society in Ancient Nepal: a Critique of Regmi, 1983. (Contributions to Nepalese Studies, vol.13(1), 1985, p.57-94) and in my `From the beginning: themes in the prehistory and ancient history of Nepal' (Voice of History, Vol. XV(2), 2000, p.39-68).
 
The post- Licchavi centuries are treated in Luciano.Petech’s Mediaeval history of Nepal c.750-1482 (Rome: ISMEO. 2nd. Ed. ,1984), which is a work for specialists, mainly concerned with establishing regnal dates but with a little information on social and economic history. For more information on the latter there is Bernard Kölver & Hemraj Sakya’s Documents from the Rudravarna-Mahavira, Patan. I. Sales And Mortgages (Sankt Augustin: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag, 1985), Prayag Raj Sharma’s  Kul, Bhumi ra Rajya: Nepal Upatyakako Purba- Madhyakalik Samajik Itihas [Lineage, Land and State; a Social History of the Early Medieval Kathmandu Valley] (Kathmandu: CNAS, 1985/6), which illustrates the adaptation of the Hindu dharmashastra tradition to local society down to the 14th. century, and Ramesh Dhungel and Aishwaryalal Pradhananga’s Kathmandu Upatyakako Madhyakalik Arthik Itihas [Economic history of the Medieval Kathmandu Valley] Kathmandu: CNAS, 1999/2000, which goes down to the 18th. century.  Another important contribution is Gérard Toffin’s Le Palais et le Temple (Paris: Editions de CNRS, 1993), which focuses particularly on the religious role of the medieval monarchy.
 
The existence in the early medieval centuries of the `Western Malla’ or`Khasa’ empire in the Karnali basin and south-western Tibet was discovered independently in the 1950s by Nepali researcher Yogi Naraharinath and the Italian scholar Giuseppe Tucci. Tucci wrote both a more detailed account of his findings for specialists, Preliminary report on two scientific expeditions to Nepal (Rome: Instituto Italiano per il Studio del Medio ed Estreme Oriente, 1956) and an illustrated summary for the general reader, The Discovery of the Malla (London: Allen & Unwin, 1962). Another good account is included in Prayag Raj Sharma’s Preliminary Account of the Art and Architecture of the Karnali Region, west Nepal (Paris: CNRS) and the most up-to-date treatment is Surya Mani Adhikary’s The Khasa Kingdom – a trans-Himalayan Empire of the Middle Ages (Jaipur: Nirala 1988). Many details of the history of the later chaubisi and baisi kingdoms in the Gandaki and Karnali basins are included in Francis Buchanan Hamilton’s An Account of the Kingdom of Nepal (1819), by a writer on the staff of Cpt. Knox, East India Company Resident in Kathmandu in 1802-1803. Much of Hamilton’s material is included in a modern compendium on western Nepal, Ram Niwas Pandey’s The Making of Modern Nepal (New Delhi: Nirala, 1997), together with a great deal of new information. The early history of the chaubisi kingdom which gave Nepal its ruling dynasty, is dealt with at length in Dinesh Raj Pant’s Gorkhako Itihas [History of Gorkha] (Kathmandu: the Author, 1984/5-1993/4).
  
From Prithvi Narayan to the end of the Rana period (1769-1951)
 
Before systematic work on British Indian and Nepali archives, writers on his period of Nepal’s history relied overwhelmingly on early publications by servants of the East Indian Company and then the Raj, some of which are still useful and are also regularly reprinted in India. The earliest full-length Western work on Nepal, An Account of the Kingdom of Nepaul, (London: W. Miller, 1811) was written by William Kirkpatrick, the leader of the 1793 mission to Kathmandu., and the similarly titled book by Francis Hamilton, who was in Kathmandu ten years later, has been mentioned above. Brian Hodgson, who was at the Residency for most of the years from 1820-1843, never wrote his projected history of Nepal but some his most important writings are included in his Essays on the Languages, Literature and Religion of Nepal and Tibet (London: Trubner, 1874) and Miscellaneous essays on Indian Subjects (London: Trubner, 1880). A eulogistic account of his role in Kathmandu is provided by his personal friend Sir William W. Hunter in his Life of Brian Houghton Hodgson, British Resident at the Court of Nepal (1896). This can be compared with the more critical assessment by contributors to David Waterhouse’s The Origins of Himalayan Studies: Brian Houghton Hodgson in Kathmandu and Darjeeling 1820-1858 (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 2004). Hector Ambrose Oldfield, surgeon at the Kathmandu Residency from 1850 to 1873 and a personal friend of Jang Bahadur Rana, provides memoirs and general notes on the country in his posthumously published Sketches from Nepal (London: W.H.Allen, 1880).
 
Among modern writers, Ludwig Stiller provides the best general account of the establishment and expansion of the modern Nepalese state down to the Anglo-Gorkha War in his Rise of the House of Gorkha (Ranchi: Patna Jesuit Society, 1968). In The Silent Cry; the People of Nepal1816-1839. (Kathmandu: Sahayogi, 1973), Stiller analyses economic and social conditions under Bhimsen Thapa and also Bhimsen’s skilful handling of the East India Company after military defeat, whilst his  Letters from Kathmandu: The Kot Massacre (Kathmandu: CNAS, 1981) is a collection of correspondence from East India Company archives illustrating events in Nepal from 1840 to 1847.
 
Whilst Stiller, American-born but a naturalised Nepali citizen, writes from a Nepali nationalist standpoint, Kumar Pradhan’s approach in The Gorkha Conquests. The Process and Consequences of the Unification of Nepal with Particular Reference to Eastern Nepal (Calcutta: Oxford University Press, 1991) is more that of an ethnic activist. He portrays Gorkha expansion as the conquest and subjugation of the Tibeto-Burman population rather than `unification’ in the true sense. A British view of the 1814-1816 conflict is provided by John Pemble The Invasion of Nepal: John Company at War (London: Oxford University Press), which is a detailed and very well-written account but reliant only on British sources.
 
There are a number of studies of relations between Nepal and British India after 1816, again largely based on British records. Particularly useful are Ramakant’s Indo-Nepalese Relations 1816-77 and three books by Kanchanmoy Mojumdar: Anglo-Nepalese Relations in the 19th. century (Calcutta: K.L.Mukhopadhyay, 1973), Political Relations between Britain and Nepal, 1877-1923 (New Delhi: Munshiram, 1973) and Nepal and the Indian Nationalist Movement (Calcutta: K.L. Mukhopadhyaya, 1975).  The last years of British rule in India are included in Asad Husain’s British India’s Relations with the Kingdom of Nepal (London: Allen and Unwin, 1970).
 
Among Mahesh Chandra’s many contributions to the economic history of the late 18th and 19th centuries, the most valuable are A Study in Nepali Economic History1768-1846 (New Delhi:Manjushri, 1972), An Economic History of Nepal 1846-1901.Varanasi: Nath Publishing House, 1988) and Imperial Gorkha: an Account of Gorkhali Rule in Kumaun (1791-1815) (Delhi: Adroit Publishers, 1999), which argues for the essentially colonial nature of Gorkha rule in this area.
 
For the beginnings of the Rana era there are my own Kings,Soldiers and Priests: Nepalese Politics and the Rise of Jang Bahadur Rana,1830-1857 (New Delhi: Manohar, 1991) and Jang Bahadur in Europe. The First Nepalese Mission to the West (Kathmandu: Sahayogi Press, 1983), an annotated translation of an account by a travelling companion of Jang’s 1850 visit to Britain and France. Pudma Jung Bahadur Rana’s biography of his father, Life of Maharaja Sir Jung Bahadur of Nepal (Allahabad: Pioneer Press, 1909; repr. ed. Kathmandu: Ratna Pustak Bhandar, 1980) is highly biassed but has some curiosity value. Andreas Höffer's The Caste Hierarchy and the State in Nepal: a study of the Muluki Ain of 1854 Insbruck: Unversitätsverlag Wagner, 1979; reprinted with new introduction, Kathmandu: Himal Books, 2004) analyses how Jang's codification of Nepalese law both reflected and impacted on the country's social structure. Rana Triratna Manandhar’s Nepal: the Years of Trouble (Kathmandu: Purna Devi Manandhar, 1986) provides the fullest and most reliable account of court intrigue under Jang’s brother and successor, Maharaja Ranoddip Singh, whilst the reign of Bir Shamsher, who took over after the Shamsher brothers’ 1885 coup, is treated in Kashi Kanta Nepali’s Political Dimensions of Nepal(Kathmandu: Radhika Mainali, 2000). The life of Juddha, the last of the first-generation of Shamsher maharajas, is a panegyric by his friend Ishwari Prasad (Biography of Juddha Shamsher J.B. Rana, New Delhi: Ashish, 1975)
 
Perceval Landon’s Nepal (London: Constable, 1928; reprint ed.(single volume) Kathmandu: Ratna Pustak Bhandar, 1976) was actually commissioned by Maharaja Chandra and is unsurprisingly rather partisan, but still a valuable portrait of the country in the early 20th. century. Adrian Sever’s Nepal under the Ranas (Delhi: Oxford & IBH Publishing Co., 1993) is a very readable, illustrated account of the whole Rana period, with particularly valuable chronological and biographical appendices. Most recently, three prominent Shamsher Ranas, viz. Prabhakar, Pashupati (currently leader of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party) and Gautam, have published The Ranas of Nepal.(New Delhi: Timeless Books, 2003). Particularly in its account of the Ranas today, this is sometimes more like a family scrapbook than detached analysis, but it is well written and valuable for its excellent selection of historic photographs and paintings, many of them in colour, and also for its description of the Rana lifestyle.  For a view of social change outside the Kathmandu Vally, there is Sherry B. Ortner’s High religion: a cultural and political history of Sherpa religion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989). This examines how income from wage labour in Darjeeling and mountaineering enabled the foundation of the first celibate monasteries in Solukhumbu in the early 20th. century.
 
Prem R. Uprety’s, Political Awakening in Nepal: the search for a New Identity (New Delhi: Commonwealth Publishers, 1992)) is useful for understanding the origins of modern Nepali nationalism and political activism, as are two articles in Studies in Nepali History and Society: Pratyoush Onta’s `Creating a brave Nepali nation in British India: the rhetoric of jati improvement, rediscovery of Bhanubhakta and the writing of bir history’ (vol.1(1), 1996, p.37-76 ) on the role of Darjeeling intellectuals in the 1930s and 1940s; and Rhoderick Chalmers’ `Pandits and Pulp fiction: Popular Publishing and the birth of Nepali Print-Capitalism in Benares’ (vol.7(1), 2002, p. 35-97), which looks at the emergence of a Nepali reading public in the inter-war years. Political and religious radicalism were often linked and Sarah Levine & David Gellner’s Rebuilding Buddhism: The Theravada Movement in Twentieth-Century Nepal (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2005) has material from the 1920s and 30s on the revival of Buddhism in the Kathmandu Valley, and on its impact up to the present day.
 
Post-Rana Nepal
 
In addition to Joshi and Rose’s authoritative volume already mentioned, there is Anirudh Gupta’s Politics in Nepal 1950-60 (reprint ed., Delhi: Kalinga Publications, 1993). For dissident activities in the early Panchayat years, Lok Raj Baral’s Oppositional Politics in Nepa.( New Delhi: Abhinav, 1977) is a valuable survey, and there is also Parmanand’s The Nepali Congress since its Inception (Delhi:B.R. Publishing, 1982). For the Nepali Left and its tortuous history of splits and mergers, full details are available only in Nepali: Bhim Rawal (later to become a UML minister) provides a succinct account in his Nepalma Samyabadi Andolan - Udbhav ra Bikas  [The Communist
Movement in Nepal - Rise and Development]  (Kathmandu: Pairavi Prakashan, 1990/91) and the fullest treatment is Surendra K.C.’s 2-volume Nepalma Kamynist Andolanko Itihas. (Kathmandu: Bidyarthi Pustak Bhandar, 1999/2000 & 2003/04). In English, the early part of Thapa and Sijapati’s Kingdom Under Siege (see below) is probably the best guide.
 
Several participants in the events have also recorded them. Bhola Chatterji one of the Indian socialist politicians who helped B.P.Koirala procure weapons for the 1950 anti-Rana revolt, gives a strongly pro-Congress account of the armed movement against the Ranas and of political developments until the early 1960s in A Study of Recent Nepalese Politics (Calcutta: World Press, 1967). Later events are covered, mostly as transcripts of extensive interviews with B.P. Koirala, in Chatterji’s Nepal's Experiment with Democracy (New Delhi: Ankur, 1977), Palace, People and Politics: Nepal in Perspective. New Delhi: Ankur., 1980) and B.P. Koirala: Portrait of a Revolutionary (2nd. ed., Calcutta: Minerva, 1990)  B.P.’s recollections are also recorded in his own posthumous Atmabrittanta: Late Life Reminiscences, as told to Ganesh Raj Sharma and translated by Kanak Dixit (Kathmandu: Himal Books, 2001). Recorded in 1981/2 during the last few months of B..P’s life, these cover his childhood years in India and activity in the Indian independence struggle as well as his role in Nepalese politics from 1947 onwards. B.P. had himself some years earlier written Aphnai Katha [My Own Story] (Kathmandu: Chetna Sahitya Prakashan, 1983/84), an account of his family background and life in India up to the 1930s. Memoirs in Nepali were also published by his colleague, Ganesh Man Singh’s, in Mero Kathaka Panaharu [Pages from My Story] (Kathmandu: Ayam Publications, 1998 & 2001), which deal with his early political involvement.  The reminiscences of Tanka Prasad Acharya, a colleague of the `four Martyrs’ in the Praja Parishad movement against the Ranas and also prime minister in 1956-7 are recorded, along with his wife’s recollections, in James Fisher’s Living Martyrs: Individuals and Revolution in Nepal (New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 1997). Rishikesh Shaha, a founder member of the Nepal Democratic Congress in 1948, was a senior diplomat as well as a member of King Mahendra’s government in the early 60s before emerging as a dissident. Some of his many essays and articles are included in, Nepali Politics: Retrospect and Prospect (2nd.ed., Delhi: OUP, 1978), Essays in the Practice of Government in Nepal (New Delhi: Manohar, 1982), and  Politics in Nepal, 1980-1990, New Delhi: Manohar, 1990.  Durga Pokhrel, a Congress activist frequently imprisoned between 1974 and 1982, who is now (January 2006) a member of King Gyanendra’s cabinet, has, together with her British husband, Anthony Willett, written Shadow over Shangri-la: a Woman's Quest for Freedom (Washington, London: Brassey's, 1996)
 
 
In addition to the works already mentioned in the `Basic narrative’ section, there are studies of the restoration of democracy and the functioning of the parliamentary system. Kiyoko Ogura’s Kathmandu Spring: the People’s Movement of 1990 (Kathmandu: Himal Books, 2001) is probably the best account of developments at street level. A Kathmandu-based Japanese journalist who is fluent in Nepali, she conducted over a thousand interviews with participants. Michael Hutt’s edited volume Nepal in the Nineties (New Delhi: Sterling, 1990) includes accounts of the `People’s Movement’, the constitution drafting process and the 1991 elections, as well as development prospects and the future of Britain’s Brigade of Gurkhas. Among the many publications of Lok Raj Baral, Nepal’s leading political scientist, Nepal: Problems of Governance (Delhi: Konark Publishers, 1993) is an analysis based on developments up to the election of the Congress government in 1991 but correctly anticipating some later problems. A Nepali-Danish collaboration, Ole Bore, Sushil R.Panday & Chitra K. Tiwari’s Nepalese Political Behaviour (New Delhi: Sterling, 1994) is an interesting study of political attitudes based on a survey of 1,000 voters conducted just after the 1991election. Krishna Hachhethu provides a detailed study of the functioning of the political parties at local level in Party-building in Nepal; the Nepali Congress Party and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) (Kathmandu: Mandala, 2002). He summarises his main arguments in his contribution to David Gellner’s Resistance and the State. Also useful as a survey of political problems emerging in the early 1990s is Dhruba Kumar’s State, Leadership and Politics in Nepal (Kathmandu: CNAS, 1995). Stephen Mikesell’s Class, State and Struggle in Nepal (Kathmandu: Manohar, 1999) is a collection of writings by an American Marxist. He is not a supporter of the Maoists `People’s War’ but his views are close to some of the more radical Nepalese Leftists.
 
The vexed question of policy towards India is dealt with in Lok Raj Baral’s of Looking to the future: Indo-Nepalese relations in perspective (New Delhi: Anmol Publications, 1996), whose contributors are representative of thinking on the issues amongst the political elites of both countries. The author was himself Nepali ambassador in Delhi under Sher Bahadur Deuba’s first government. Dipak Gyawali (later a member of Gyanendra’s November 2002 government) and Ajaya Dixit, analyse the process leading to ratification of the controversial Mahakali Treaty on water resources sharing in `How not to do a South Asian Treaty’ (Himal, April 2001, p.8-19). A more detached analysis of water issues is provided by Bhim Subba in his contribution to Kanak Dixit and Ramachandran Shastri’s State of Nepal (see below). There is also now Surya P. Subedi's Dynamics of Foreign Policy  and Law: a Study of Indo-Nepal Relations (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005), a study from a moderate Nepalese-nationalist point of view by an author who is also an expert in international law
 
For the Maoists, the starting point is R. Andrew Nickson’s `Democratisation and the Growth of Communism in Nepal: a Peruvian Scenario in the Making?' (Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 30 (3), 1992, p.358-86) a prescient paper forecasting the outbreak of the `People’s War’. Deepak Thapa and Bandita Sijapati’s A Kingdom Under Siege: Nepal’s Maoist Insurgency,1996-2004. (2nd. ed. London: Zed Books, 2005) provides a detailed account of both the origins and development of the insurgency.  Robert Gersony’s `Sowing the Wind… History and Dynamics of the Maoist Revolt in Nepal’s Rapti Hills’ (Report for Mercy Corps International, downloadable from http://www2.mercycorps.org/items/1662/) has attracted suspicion because of its funding by U.S.A.I.D. and the author (like Mahesh Chandra Regmi before him) has even been accused of being a C.I.A. agent. However, it provides valuable background on the growth of Maoist influence in their core area on the Rolpa-Rukum border, a plausible explanation of their success outside their heartland and also excellent maps. At the other end of the political spectrum, Li Onesto’s Dispatches from the People’s War in Nepal (London: Pluto Press, 2004) is an uncritical account by a committed Maoist author.  Edited by Arjun Karki, a UML politician and NGO leader, and by British academic David Seddon, The People’s War in Nepal: Left Perspectives (New Delhi: Adroit Publishers, 2003) includes some of the Maoists’ own documents and also contributions by Leftists critical of their methods. Finally, marked by detailed analysis and a wide range of viewpoints, there is Michael Hutt’s edited volume Himalayan "People's War": Nepal's Maoist Rebellion (London: Hurst, 2003).
 
The royal massacre of 2001 sparked a flood of articles and several books. Among them Jonathan Gregson, Blood against the Snows; the Tragic Story of Nepal’s Royal Dynasty (London: Fourth Estate, 2002) makes good use of interviews with palace `insiders’ and also offers a rather less valuable general history of the dynasty. Prakash A.Raj’s `Kay Gardeko?’ The Royal Massacre in Nepal (New Delhi: Rupa) is a brief, clear account published soon after the event.  Gregson clearly does not share the suspicion that Gyanendra or his son were behind the massacre and Raj merely presents the facts as officially revealed. Most Nepalese probably still privately assume there was some kind of conspiracy. This fact, and the discounting of such suspicions by many western observers, are the subject of Bipin Adhikari, & S.B.Mathe’s `The Global Media, the Probe Commission, and the Assassination of Nepal's Royal Family: Questions Unasked and Unanswered’ and rejoinders to it (Himalayan Research Bulletin, XXI (1), 2001, p.45-66)
 
Although occurring outside Nepal itself, developments amongst `ethnic Nepalese’ communities in other parts of South Asia have impacted on Nepal’s own politics. Tanka B.Subba, himself a Darjeeling Nepali, offers a sympathetic account of the struggle to detach the region from West Bengal’s control in his Ethnicity, State and Development: a Case Study of Gorkhaland Movement in Darjeeling (New Delhi: Dhar Anand, 1992). For the Bhutan crisis, D.N.S.Dhakal and Christopher Strawn’s Bhutan; a Movement in Exile (New Delhi& Jaipur: Nirala, 1994) is similarly supportive of the Nepalese refugees case. Michael J.Hutt’s sympathies in Unbecoming Citizens: Culture, Nationhood, and the Flight of Refugees from Bhutan (Delhi: OUP, 2003) are also with the refugees but the approach is more academic. He also includes detailed investigation of the development of the Lhotsampa (ethnic Nepalese) community of southern Bhutan from the late 19th century onwards.
 
For Nepali citizens serving in Britain’s Brigade of Gurkhas, the general works mentioned in `Basic narratives’ can be supplemented with In Gurkha Company. The British Army Gurkhas, 1948 to the Present. (London: Arms and Armour, 1986), an enthusiastic account by a retired Gurkha officer now living in Nepal with an adopted Nepalese family. Another ex-Gurkha officer, Nigel Collet, provides an official British view of the future of the Brigade in his contribution to Michael Hutt’s Nepal in the Nineties (see above)
 
 The Economy
 
For a specialist in economic history a very obvious and relatively accessible source is the many reports produced by or for UN agencies and other arms of the international development industry. There are also, however, important published studies. Eugene Bramer Mihaly’s Foreign Aid and Politics in Nepal: a Case Study )London: Oxford University Press, 1965) is one of the earliest and was recently re-issued with an update by Sudhindra Sharma (Kathmandu: Himal Books, 2002). Although not uncritical of foreign, and particularly American approaches, the book is unpopular with many in Nepal because it puts much of the blame for development failure on Nepalese attitudes.  For the later role of foreign aid there is Narayan Khadka’s Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy: Major Powers and Nepal (New Delhi:
Vikash Publishing House, 1997).  Piers Blaikie, John Cameron and David Seddon’s Nepal in Crisis – Growth and Stagnation at thePeriphery. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), owes its origins to an aid project as the authors were commissioned by the British Government’s Overseas Development Agency to investigate the economic effects of a road-building programme. The wider study they eventually produced sees the obstacles to progress in social relations within Nepal and in the country’s dependent position within the international system. The book’s unrelieved pessimism is slightly modified in later work by the East Anglian team, including Peasants and Workers in Nepal (Warminster: Aris & Philips, 1979) and David Seddon’s Nepal –a State of Poverty (Delhi: Vikas, 1987). Useful on changing economic policis in the Panchayat years and also as a guide to the thinking of the man later to become Sher Bahadur Deuba’s economic advisor is Narayan Khadka’s Politics and Development in Nepal (Jaipur: Nirala, 1994).
 
Not strongly committed to any particular theoretical standpoint but useful as a general survey is Pradyumna Prasad Karan and Hiroshi Ishii’s Nepal: a Himalayan Kingdom in Transition (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1996; Delhi: Bookwell, 1997), which deals mainly with natural resources, population movements and economic development. Another very useful reference source, dealing with broad social trends as well as the economy is NESAC’s Nepal Human Development Report 1998. Kathmandu: Nepal South Asia Centre, 1998). This was commissioned by the UN and produced by a team including Devendraraj Panday, a former Finance Secretary and Finance Minister, and former Planning Commission member Chaitanya Mishra and recommends a more welfarist approach than the broadly neo-liberal policies implemented after 1990.  Panday himself is also the author of Nepal’s Failed Development: Reflections on the Mission and the Maladies (Kathmandu: Nepal South Asia Centre, 1999). This is very well-written and impressive for Panday’s frank admission of failure by the educated class, himself included, but does not go into detail on decisions which he was himself involved in.  Another contribution from a policy practioner is Harka Gurung’s Regional Patterns of Migration in Nepal (Honolulu: East-West Centre, 1989), a scholarly but readable analysis by a geographer and former minister who also led the commission that produced a controversial report on the citizenship issue in 1984.
 
Finally, Laurie Zivetz’s Private Enterprise and the State in Modern Nepal (Madras: Oxford University
Press, 1992) gives a private sector perspective on economic policy in the Panchayat era as, in addition to extensive interviews with entrepeneurs, she can draw on her own experience running a small enterprise in Nepal. 
 
Social developments:
 
Any selection out of the enormous amount published on Nepalese society over the last fifty years has to be particularly arbitrary but a good collection of essays on the country at the end of the century is Kanak Dixit & Ramachandran Shastri’s State of Nepal (Kathmandu: Himal Books, 2002), the many topics covered including education and the media. Dor Bahadur.Bista’s Fatalism and Development: Nepal's Struggle for Modernization (Hyderabad, India: Orient Longman, 1991) is a controversial work which attempts to explain Nepal’s development failure as the result of the value-system of high-caste Hindus. Gellner, et al’s Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom (already referred to for analysis of long-term trends) focusses also on the recent phenomenon of ethnic activism, groups covered including the Tharus, Tamangs, Gurungs and Maithils. Village-level response to increasing state control as well as ethnic movements and the Maoist rebellion are all treated in another work edited by David Gellner, e Resistance and the State: Nepalese Experiences (New Delhi: Social Science, 2003).  Mark Liechty focusses on a cross-ethnic section of urban society in his Suitably Modern: Making Middle-Class Culture in a New Consumer Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), a fascinating exploration of the values and anxieties of the Kathmandu Valley’s middle-class. Laura Ahearn’s Invitations to Love: Literacy, Love Letters, and Social Change in Nepa.l (Michigan University Press, 2002) looks at changing gender relations and courtship patterns amongst educated Magars in Palpa district but much of the analysis applies to Nepalese society more widely.  Also of general relevance is Todd Ragsdale’s Once a Hermit Kingdom: Ethnicity, Education and National Integration in Nepal (Kathmandu: Ratna Pustak Bhandar, 1989), which examines the impact of the New Education System Plan on a Gurung village and its school. Another controversial issue has been the rapid increase in the Christian community since 1990. Background to this is supplied by the latest edition of Johnathan Lindell’s Nepal and the Gospel of God (Kathmandu: United Mission to Nepal/Pilgrim Book House 1997), which deals with the activities of Protestant missionaries in Nepal from the 1950s onwards. Controversy is deliberately courted in John Frederick’s `Deconstructing Gita' (Himal (vol.11 (10) (October 1998), p.12-23). He argues that, rather than being the unknowing victims of traffickers, families often know their daughters are being taken into prostitution but feel poverty leaves them no alternative.
 
There have been several important studies of the Tharus, one of Nepal’s largest ethnic groups.ethnic groups. Arjun Guneratne’s Many Tongues, One People: the Making of Tharu Identity in Nepal (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002) examines how the indigenous inhabitants of the Tarai were subordinated by Parbatiya settlers and how originally very different groups came to see themselves as a single people. Tatsuro Fujikura’s `Emancipation of Kamaiyas: Development, Social Movement, and Youth Activism in Post-Jana-Andolan Nepal’ (Himalayan Research Bulletin 2(1), 2001, p.29-35) is an interesting study of how Tharu activists organised effectively by alternately working the international `aid establishment’ and taking direct political action. An alternative, less enthusiastic view of the NGO involved is provided by Gisèle Krauskopff’s contribution to David Gellner’s Resistance and the State
 
Turning again to the hills, Mary C. Cameron’s On the Edge of the Auspicious: Gender and Caste in Nepal (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998) looks at low-caste women in Bajhang district in the far west  In . Sherpas: Reflections on Change in Himalayan Nepal (1990) James F. Fisher argues that the Sherpas have actually been able to take advantage of tourism and other changes to strengthen rather than weaken their distinct identity. A rather more pessimistic view of social change in Solu Khumbu is Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorff’s The Sherpas transformed – social change in a Buddhist society of Nepal (New Delhi: Sterling, 1984). Gellner and Declan Quigley’s edited volume, Contested Hierarchies: a Collaborative Ethnography of the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999) contains separate chapters on different castes and caste goups, focussing on the contemporary position but including some historical background. David.Holmberg’s Order in Paradox: Myth, Ritual and Exchange among Nepal's Tamang (Ithaca.: Cornell University Press, 1989) is concerned particularly with Tamang religion but includes more general information on the group and the evolution of their place in Nepalese society.  The Thakalis, an ethnic group who have fared much better economically than the Tamangs, are the focus of William F. Fisher’s Fluid Boundaries: Forming and Transforming Identity in Nepal, New York: Columbia University Press, 2001).
 
ERRATA FOR WHELPTON, HISTORY OF NEPAL
p.xx, l.3-4: `Ram Krishna Poudel’ should be `Ram Chandra Poudel’
p. 1, para 2, line 2: `eighty’ should be `fifty’
p.13, para 3, l.5: `Rong’ should be `Rung’ (Rong is in fact an alternative name for the Lepcha language spoken in Sikkim)
p. 19, para 3, line 7: `Britkuti’ should be `Bhrikuti’
p. 45, 3 lines from bottom: `Chautara’ should be `Chautaria’
p. 49, last para, l.2: `chautara should be chautaria
p. 64, para 2, line 2: `Before moving against Dhir ' should be `before moving against Dev'. 
p. 70, para last: line 2 from below: `Sarat Chandra Bose' should be `Subhas Chandra Bose'
p. 71, para 3, l.1: `the king’s youngest grandson’ should be `Crown Prince Mahendra’s second son’ (Gyanendra was born in 1947 and Dhirendra in 1950, so `youngest grandson’ is certainly wrong and, as I’m not sure if Mahendra’s brothers had had children before the flight to India, just referring to Gyanendra as Mahendra’s second son is safest).
p. 81, para 2, l.1: Delete the first `such’
p. 82, l.8: `Marichman’ should be `Ratna Man’
p.83, l.8: delete `temporary’ (some of them returned, others stayed in the tarai)
p. 102, 3rd. line from bottom: `Lepcha’ should be `Bhotiya’
p. 111, l.3: `king’s sister’ should be `king’s aunt’ (this is Helen Shah, wife of Mahendra’s brother,
         Prince Basundhara. The error was in People. Politics and Ideology but nobody spotted it 
         before)
p. 135, para 1, l.3: `Pakrabas’ should be `Pakhribas’
p.139, para 1, l.3: `Airlines’ should be `airlines’ (because those involved at the start were small private airlines, not the present state-owned `Indian Airlines’ company.)
p. 164, para 2, l.8: `how girls ending up in the sex trade' should be `how far girls ending up in the sex trade'
p.166, l.3: `Department’ should be `Ministry’
p. 167, para 2, l.7: `Budhanilkante’ should be `Budhanilkantha’
p. 168, para.2, l.5: `Tanka Prasad Acharya’s 1956-57 government’ should be `K.I.Singh’s 1957 government’
p.177, 7 lines from bottom: `even if formally part’ should be `even if not formally part’
p.185, 2 lines from bottom: `Gurkha’ should be `Gorkha’
p.186, line 4: Gurkha’ should be `Gorkha’
p.187, para 2, line 14: `1984’ should be `1983’ (Harka Gurung’s own correction!)
p.211, para  2, l.21: `Gorakh Bikram Shah’ should be `Gorakh Shamsher Rana’ (with consequent deletion of `Shah, Gorakh Bikram’ from the index (p.294) and insertion of new entry `Rana, Gorakh
  Shamsher, p.211’ on page 293.
p. 235, para 2, l.1: `seventeenth century' should be `eighteenth century'
p. 235, para 2, 8 lines from bottom:  `late sixteenth' should be `late eighteenth'
p. 236: In the last but one line of the Shah family tree, Gyanendra ought to come before Dhirendra.
(see explanation above for p.71).
p. 239, entry for `Bista, Kirtinidhi’, l.3, `in 1971-3 and 1997-9; should be `in 1969-73 and 1977-9’.
p. 239, note on Buddha (Siddhartha Gautam): `c.400-320’ should be `c. 484-404’ (the dates are as recently recalculated by Gombrich. Many scholars still prefer the old scholarly consensus of 567-487) 
p. 240, entry for `Bamdev, Gautam’, l.5: `G.P.Mainali’ should be `C.P.Mainali’
p. 240, entry for `Giri, Tulsi’: `chairman…. in 1961-4’ should be `chairman… in 1963-5’
p. 244, entry for `Rana, Jang Bahadur..’: `mutiny in 1857-59’ should be `mutiny in 1857-8’)
p. 245, entry for Subarna Shamsher, l.1: `son’ should be `grandson’ (his father (and a major financier of the anti-Rana revolt) was Hiranya)
p. 246, entry for `Shah, Rana Bahadur’, last line: `1791’ should be `1794’.
p. 254. Note 11:`Karbir Khatri' should be `Lal Singh Khatri' (a particularly embarrassing mistake as I'm citing my own earlier book, which did have the name right!)
p. 254, n.15.`Marichman’ should be `Ratna Man’
p. 246, entry for `Shah, Dhirendra’ , l.1: `Second’ should be `Youngest’
p. 246, entry for `Shah, Gyanendra’, 1.1: `Youngest’ should be `Second’
p. 247, entry for `Shah, Prithvi Narayan’, line 5: `father’ should be `founder’ (as the title `father of the nation’ was bestowed on Tribhuvan)
p. 248, entry for `Shaha, Rana Bahadur’: `as mukhtiyar (head of administration)’ should be `to take control of the administration’ (he only received the formal position of mukhtiyar in 1806)
p. 248, entry for Shah, Ratna, line 2: `in 1951’ should be `in 1952’
p. 249, entry for Gagan Singh: `prime minister’ should be `a minister’
p. 249, entry for K.L.Singh: `elected to parliament in 1959 and’ should be `failed to win a seat in the 1959 parliament but elected’
p. 250: entry for Thapa, Amar Singh, line 3: `Ranjki’ should be `Ranjit’
p. 250: entry for Thapa, Surya Bahadur, lines 2-3: ` prime minister under the Panchayat system in 1964-8’ should be `under the Panchayat system chairman of the council of ministers (1965-7) and prime minister (1967-9)’
p. 262: entry `khancha’ should be `kancha’
p.265, entry for `Sen’: `Makwanpur’ should be `Palpa’
p. 266: entry for `Tharu Welfare Society':  `Tharu Kalyankari Sabha' should be `Tharu Kalyankarini Sabha'
 p.266: Entry for `Therevada': the correct spelling is `Theravada'
p.274: entry for `Jacobson, Calla’: `Bulletin of Himalayan Research’ should be `Himalayan Research Bulletin’
 
ADDITIONAL ERRORS NOT CORRECTED IN SOUTH ASIAN REPRINT (2007 March onwards)
 
p.42: sixth line from bottom, `Sagauli’ should be `Sugauli’
p.54: para 2, 10: `post-Sagauli’ should be `post-Sugauli’
p.56: para 2, 2nd. line from bottom: `Sagauli’ should be `Sugauli’
p.64: para 4, 2: `Sagauli’ should be `Sugauli’
p.173, para 2 from bottom, last sentence: `though the original Nepali…..development’.’ should be:
          `the original Nepali, bikasko mul phutaunu, being actually a metaphor taken from hydrology -         `to break open the well springs of development.’
p.203, para 2, l.4: `Pushpa Kumar’ should be `Pushpa Kamal’
p.217            In the third line below the picture, `Krishna Bahadur Mahara’ should be `Dinanath Sharma’
p.242, entry for `Prachanda’: `Pushapa Kumar Dahal’ should be `Pushpa Kamal Dahal’
p.285; entry for `Dahal, Pushpa Kumar’ should be `Pushpa Kamal Dahal’
p.293: entry for `Sagauli’ should be `Sugauli’ and `61’ should be deleted
 

[1]           Strictly speaking `Brigade’ is accurate as a collective term for British Gurkha units only after 1949.