The Nepal valley in 1200 is known chiefly from dated manuscript colophons and short inscriptions, which name the reigning king with the Nepal era year, and from the Gopalarajavamsavali, a chronicle written about 1389 that lists the kings with regnal years. Together they show the end of the Thakuri line and the accession about 1200 of Arimalladeva (reigning to about 1216), the first king styled Malla, with the valley's towns of Patan, Bhaktapur and Kathmandu under one crown. Petech's Mediaeval History of Nepal collects the colophons and works out the regnal dates; Regmi prints the source texts. For the Khasa kingdom of the Karnali there is no text of 1200 at all: its witnesses are 13th- and 14th-century inscriptions and Tibetan notices.
About this source
- Title
- Gopalarajavamsavali, with the dated manuscript colophons and inscriptions of the Nepal valley
- Author
- Anonymous (chronicle); various scribes (colophons)
- Written
- the chronicle about 1389; the colophons are contemporary notes of the 11th to 14th centuries
- Language
- Sanskrit and Newari
- Covers
- the chronicle from legendary times to 1389; the colophons give a dated sequence from the 11th century
- Kind
- Chronicle
Petech's second edition (1984) revises the chronology and is not online. The exact year of Arimalla's accession (Nepal era 320, that is 1200) rests on the colophon sequence and is given as 1200 or 1201 in different reconstructions. The evidence for Nepal around 1200 is thin and nearly all of it is dates and names.
Where to read it
Editions
- D. Vajracarya and K. P. Malla (eds.), The Gopalarajavamsavali (Wiesbaden, 1985), facsimile, text and English translation; not freely online (not freely online)
- D. R. Regmi, Medieval Nepal, part 3: source materials, inscriptions, chronicles and colophons (Calcutta, 1966); in copyright, not freely online in an authorised copy (not freely online)
Read it online
- L. Petech, Mediaeval History of Nepal, c. 750 to 1480 (Rome, IsMEO, 1958), with the dated colophons; Central Secretariat Library (Government of India) scan of an in-copyright book, status unclear (in copyright; not linked) (not freely online)