-Dr. Niranjan Man Singh Basnyat

Kathmandu, Nepal

Begin text.

European writers including Perceval Landon and H. Ambrose Oldfield have mentioned about this issue of cutting of noses and published such stories in their books. Earlier in 1796, one Italian Christian Priest named Giuseppe, who was living in Nepal for some time and was among other Christians who went to see King Prithvi Narayan Shah in Patan before their expulsion, had published an article from London in “Asiatic Researches” with a view to tarnishing the image of King Prithvi Narayan Shah by falsely mentioning the highly exaggerated details of this episode of Kirtipur. A poet of that era Lalita Ballav Arjyal has also said that ‘some’ people’s noses were cut.

When in Sanskrit, it is said ‘some’ (Kanscha birupina), which means eight to ten persons only. All those stories about 17 Dharnis (40.63 kg) of cut noses were false propaganda spread by the Christian priests who were expelled by King Prithvi Narayan Shah when he conquered Patan and entered there probably on 14 January 1769. All Capuchin Priests and Christians including Giuseppe had met with King Prithvi Narayan Shah in Patan to request him to let them stay there at their churches.

However, he expelled all Capuchin Priests including their leader Giuseppe along with 62 Newar Christians at that time saying that Nepalese people do not like to practice other people’s religion.
Actually King Prithvi Narayan Shah was not happy with them not only due to religious reasons but also due to political reasons, because he believed they used to send all the secret information to the British East India Company. He also believed that they were instrumental in inviting British attack in Sindhuli Gadhi in collaboration with King Jaya Parakash Malla.

Christian priests had entered Tibet in the 14th century and they were living there in Lhasa for a long time. Later Tibetans felt that they were influencing people to convert to Christianity from their religion of Buddhism. So, the Government of Tibet expelled them in 1742. Christians from Italy had merged Nepal and Tibet in one geographical grouping for missionary purposes. They had entered Nepal during the time of King Jagajjaya Malla of Kantipur in 1715 and they used Kantipur as a transit point to go to Tibet and return from there. Once King Jagajjaya Malla had also expelled them from Kantipur in 1722 and they were welcomed by King Ranajit Malla in Bhaktapur. But later King Ranajit Malla of Bhaktapur in 1737 and King Jaya Prakash Malla of Kantipur during the same period of time provided them with land and houses to live in. In Patan they were also provided one house and land in 1744.7 Thus they had three churches in Kathmandu Valley before they were expelled from Nepal by King Prithvi Narayan Shah in 1769.

Attack on Sindhuli by the East India Company:

After the capture of Kirtipur by Gorkhalis, King Jaya Prakash Malla became nervous and restless. King Jaya Prakash Malla sent a request letter for the help with Ramdas Bairagi and Mukhtar Umda, a Muslim, to Edward Golding, an official of East India Company in February 1767. They could easily cross the border as Gorkhalis were not very strict with the foreign Yogis and religious persons. In the meantime, King Prithvi Narayan Shah ordered Champa Singh Thapa (Godar), fort in-charge of Sindhuli, to send the report regarding the activities of British troops from the very beginning. Thapa was sending information with the increased frequency of postal services to King Prithvi Narayan Shah. Some paharis (tribal people) were also brought to the services for Gorkhalis for intelligence gathering from Hariharpur, from where they were sending intelligence reports to Sen Kings of Makwanpur earlier.

Ramchandra Prasai, son of Srikrishna Prasai, a resident of Pakarbas, Ramechhap wrote a letter to King Prithvi Narayan Shah about the activities and possible attack of East India Company forces in Sindhuli. The king replied to his letter from Kirtipur base camp on Tuesday 18 August 1767. This letter has been published. In this letter, King Prithvi Narayan Shah also mentioned about one Raj Narayan who was helping Gorkhalis in gathering fighters from the Khurkot area. He further told him that British people (Filangi) are like ‘wolves’ and they should not share any secret information with them at any cost. He said that it was only Gorakhnath who could save us. However, Prasai may not be the only person to send such intelligence reports to the king from Sindhuli. Thus the author believes that the king used to get information from other people and other sources as well. Nevertheless, the king thanked Prasai and he gave him some assignment to block a possible attack in collaboration with other people and the military forces sent by him from Kirtipur. Likewise Jaya Narayan Thapa of Nigale, Sindhuli, was assigned the job of disturbing the wild honeybees and other insects in the forest with smoke and other means so that they would bite members of the East India Company if they tried for an attack.

When Sindhuligadi was captured by Gorkhalis earlier on Saturday 2 October 1762, King Prithvi Narayan Shah had asked Champa Singh Thapa (Godar) and Jasram Thapa (Bagale) to bring their families to live there and divided Sindhuli into two halves among themselves to administer the newly won territories. They might have been living in Sindhuli since then. King Prithvi Narayan Shah had also arranged the marriage of a daughter of Kazi Tularam Pandey with Dambar Thapa, son of Jasram Thapa, just to persuade him to join Gorkha troops. Jasram Thapa was previously a courtier of Kantipur and had an audience with King Prithvi Narayan Shah in Nuwakot through the intermediary of Haribansa Upadhyaya Adhikari of Dahachowk.

In 1767, King Jaya Prakash Malla of Kantipur asked the help of the British East India Company to save his kingdom from Gorkhali attack. King Prithvi Narayan Shah sent Kehar Singh Basnyat to Patna with his letter to Mr. Yambold expressing his own views on the subject. Instead, the British warned King Prithvi Narayan Shah and Mr. Yambold sent 2400 troops under the command of Captain George Kinloch via Sindhuli to help Kantipur. They fully ignored the letter of King Prithvi Narayan Shah.

Captain Kinloch started his expedition from Mowa, India, to attack Gorkhalis through the Janakpur-Sindhuligadi route on Wednesday 26 August 1767. The way rations were controlled at the time by Gorkhalis across this route has been well described in the following way by a writer: “[Then] the Gorkhalis moved to hide and empty rations and logistics along the Janakpur-Sindhuli route. They reached Janakpur four days before the arrival of Kinloch’s mission and forced the local residents to hide away their foodstuffs. Terrified by the Gorkhalis, they refused to provide a single grain to the Companymen. Rumsbold had told Kinloch that he recommended Dandev Chaudhary of Janakpur to arrange foods for the British soldiers. But as his troops arrived in Janakpur, Dandev had disappeared from the scene. He was compelled to keep his soldiers hungry for 32 hours as he led them to Karkare of Sindhuli from Janakpur. He had already committed a blunder by not arranging the foodstuffs for his men. The captain had himself suffered from starvation and had to ask a soldier for food as he wrote in his diary:

“So we had nothing to eat or sleep on, having now fast above 30 hours I found myself extremely hungry and begged a little rice of one of the sepoys”.

Captain Kinloch had the hope of collecting rations in Sindhuli bazar but when he landed there, he saw the entire market had been vacated. He neither found local people nor the foodstuff.
He naively thought that the Gorkhalis might have fled the scene for fear of English troops. This was another miscalculation of the situation. The Gorkhalis had already relocated the entire settlement to another site so that the Company men did not get any support from the locals.”

Captain Kinloch has mentioned about the “Killedar Chumpan Sing Tapa” of Sidely (Protector of Sindhuli Fort Champa Singh Thapa) saying “….. Tapa had sent letter to Nepaul informing his master of my being here, who would certainly send a body of best sepoys to dispute that place with me being the key of communication and of the utmost consequence to him.”10
King Prithvi Narayan Shah was ready for this war with his preparations. He had sent Bansaraj Pandey and Shreeharsha Panth in the month of April 1767 with 700 troops from Kirtipur to fight against East India Company forces. Another 300 troops were stationed at Hariharpur Gadhi to block the advance of Kinloch’s troops if they tried to enter Kathmandu through the Hariharpur Gadhi-Panauti route. Khajanchi Birbhadra Upadhyaya (Sapkota) and Shikari Banshu Gurung were already there in Sindhuligarhi with their 500 troops. They waited for the right moment for an attack in Pauwagadhi from above the hill. Troops commanded by Kazi Bansaraj Pandey and Shreeharsha Panth were stationed in Dhungrebas. Both the combined forces of Gorkha fought very bravely to crush the attack of the East India Company. Captain Kinloch lost the war very badly against the Gorkhali forces and fled. They lost 1600 troops out of 2400 and the 800 surviving troops fled with Captain Kinloch to Bara. About 500 muskets were also captured by Gorkhalis and Gorkha created some companies with these weapons.

When the British started climbing the hills, there were attacks from Pauwagadhi (above) and Dhungre Bhanjyang from below simultaneously. Captain Kinloch could not sustain the attack from the front and rear. He lost two-thirds of his forces either to death or desertion. Thus, the dreams of King Jaya Prakash Malla and Captain Kinloch to enter into Nepal was shattered. It was a major victory for King Prithvi Narayan Shah and his Gorkhali troops which prevented the East India Company from attacking Nepal again for 48 years.

Ludwig F. Stiller, a historian of Nepal, has described this battle with the East India Company as follows: “The fall of Kirtipur panicked the Malla Kings. They sent secretly to India to request aid from the East India Company. Since the Mallas were trading partners and the Gorkhalis were not, the British agreed to help. The Company’s officers, almost totally ignorant of Nepal, thought an army of a thousand men could make a quick dash to the Valley to save the Mallas. Incredibly, in 1767 this force crossed the Tarai during the malarial monsoon. They travelled without a supply train, expecting their Mallas allies to provide the rations. In the face of Gorkhali blockade of the Valley, the Mallas could do no such thing. The Gorkhalis had also stripped the villages along the British line of march, leaving the invaders nothing to forage. Sadly short of food, the Company’s troops struggled up the steep slopes of the Mahabharata range. There the Gorkhalis hit them with such force that barely a third of the expedition could be assembled when the survivors returned to India.” During this period, Chautaria Mohaddamkirti Shah, Kazi Kehar Singh Basnyat and Kazi Abhiman Singh Basnyat were protecting Makwanpur and were ready with back up forces to fight against the British, if required.

In this battle, five Godar Thapas namely Gajendra Singh, Kuldev Singh, Bajubarna, Suryaman and Saindhwoj made their supreme sacrifice. Suryaman and Saindhwoj were the sons of Bajubarna Thapa. Three persons from a single family laid down their lives for the country. One Asthani Thapa Magar was also killed. But they were able to capture two canons from the British in the Jitpur battle (Sindhuli). These canons were brought to the National Museum in Kathmandu after they were kept in Sindhuli Gadhi for many years. Historians have given the date of the final Gorkhali victory against the East India Company as Sunday 27 September 1767.

After the defeat, Captain Kinloch was believed to have lived in Bara for two years. Kazi Kehar Singh Basnyat had written a letter to Captain Kinloch in Bara in 1768, but the details of the letter remains unknown.

Victory of Kathmandu (Kantipur):

When British troops had to flee after losing the war in Sindhuli, King Jaya Prakash Malla became restless. He had already spent a lot of money from the Trusts of different temples of Kantipur including Pashupatinath to maintain the Nagarkoti troops he assembled from Kangada and other places from India to defend his kingdom against Gorkhali forces. As a result, his subjects were not pleased with King Jaya Prakash Malla because of this. At the same time, people were also facing drought and famine. In such a situation, King Prithvi Narayan Shah saw an opportune moment to attack Kantipur. He left Nuwakot with Chautaria Mohaddamkirti Shah, Nahar Singh, Kehar Singh, Bhotu Pandey and other Gorkhali warriors to attack Kantipur. On Sunday 25 September 1768, Kantipur was captured by Gorkha on the day of the Indrajatra festival. Kathmandu was attacked fromthree different directions namely Naradevi, Tundikhel (parade ground) and Bhimsensthan. King Prithvi Narayan Shah himself had led the attack from Bhimsensthan side. Many courtiers including Tularam Pandey, Kehar Singh, Abhiman Singh, Amar Singh Thapa and Ramkrishna Kunwar had played a major role in this battle. Ram Krishna Kunwar and Amar Singh Thapa were appointed Sardars immediately after the victory.

King Jaya Prakash Malla fled to Patan that night with some of his troops. Before leaving, he had some explosives scattered around the Temple of Taleju where Kazi Tularam Pandey was injured and later died. King Prithvi Narayan Shah was grieved to learn of the death of Kazi Tularam Pandey who was a great hero from the battles in Nuwakot, Dahachowk, Naldum, Mahadevpokhari, Sangachowk, Changu, Dolakha, Makwanpur, Kirtipur and others.

In the night of 25th September, King Prithvi Narayan Shah ascended the throne of thmandu after having ‘Tika’ with living goddess Kumari according to the traditions of Kathmandu. This shows his respect for local traditions. It was a landmark victory of Gorkha.

Victory of Patan:

Kehar Singh Basnyat suggested to the king that the six chiefs of Patan should be taken into confidence before the attack. The king gave Kehar Singh full powers to negotiate with the chiefs.
Then, Kehar Singh left for Patan with Shreeharsha Mishra, Kazi Dhanawant Khawas and others to talk with the chiefs of Patan. Dhanawant was a former Kazi of Patan. Kehar Singh assured all of them that their property and land would not be touched if they surrendered to Gorkhali troops. On Thursday October 6, 1768, Kehar Singh with the help of Dhanawant Khawas entered with his troops to Patan and captured it without any bloodshed. Dhanwant Khawas was made the chief of Patan for some months thereafter. Three months later, the king appointed Kehar Singh Basnyat as the Chief Administrator of Patan. The people of Patan welcomed King Prithvi Narayan Shah in January 1769 showering him with flowers and vermilion powder during his first visit.

Kehar Singh Basnyat ruled Patan through the control of different chiefs in his own discretion convincing them that nothing would happen to their personal safety, security, or property. The chiefs had gifted a lot of jewelry to the Gorkhalis which Kehar Singh showed to King Prithvi Narayan Shah in a Swothghar in Patan. The king was pleased with the work of Kehar Singh and thanked him immensely. Inspired by the good deeds of Kehar Singh, one Kazi of Patan donated all his properties to the cause of social service.

Trade Mission to Tibet:

The king sent Kehar Singh to Khasa, Tibet, when he was the administrator of Patan, in order to conduct the negotiation for the circulation of newly minted pure silver coins there. He as accompanied by Nandu Shah and Brihaspati Upadhyaya. The talks failed because Tibet refused to bear the huge loss if the mixed coins (they were called Naktang), which were already in circulation in larger numbers, were to be replaced by pure coins from Nepal without any compensation for old ones. The Tibetan side was led by the chief (Dhewa) of that area and he was called by the Lhasa government to personally report when the negotiation was going on. He left for Lhasa without completing negotiations. In the meantime, some Tamang and Sherpa people of adjoining areas started looting Newar merchants at the border when they received information about the failure of negotiation. Kehar Singh and his team arrested them and started taking action on them. He wrote a letter on Sunday 30 July 1769 from Khasa (also called Khasapuri) to King Prithvi Narayan Shah describing details about why negotiation could not proceed further.

Leo E. Rose has dealt extensively on this issue of Tibetan trade and the issues surrounding the coins. He observed that: “One of his [King Prithvi Narayan Shah’s] first acts after the conquest of Kathmandu Valley was to send a deputation to Tibet with a larger number of newly minted coins of the proper alloy, struck in his name. The Tibetan government was asked to sanction their circulation. The merchants of Lhasa and Shigatse, however, refused to accept the coins, and the Tibetan authorities agreed to allow their use only if Gorkha was prepared to buy back—at its face value all the debased Malla currency then in circulation in Tibet…he [King Prithvi Narayan Shah] was not willing to absorb the heavy losses that repurchase of the Malla currency at its face value would have entailed for Nepal.” Rose further mentions in his book that “…as Tibet had paid the nominal rather than true value of the coins, it insisted that the Gorkha conquerors of Nepal should bear any loss involved in their exchange with new “pure” coins, arguing that a one-for-one principle should be applied. Gorkha, on the other hand, maintained that as the debased coins had been minted by their enemies, the Mallas, they bore no responsibility, for their redemption. Nepal argued that the coins should be exchanged on the basis of their relative value, holding generally that the exchange ratio should be one for two of the older coins.

Actually, older coins were minted by the joint collaboration of King Ranajit Malla of Bhaktapur and King Jaya Prakash Malla of Kathmandu to finance the war against advancing Gorkha. That is why the coin was debased by reducing the ratio of silver to other metals in the coins for larger profits.

Kehar Singh came back from Tibet by the call of the king in the third week of August 1769 because the king wanted to capture Bhaktapur, the last Malla Kingdom of the valley to be annexed to Gorkha. Thus, Kazi Kehar Singh and his team had to return to Nepal without any success in the negotiations in Khasa.

# The author could be reached at: niranjanbasny-at@gmail.com.

# Next issue to begin with: ‘Victory of Bhaktapur and the end of Malla Era”: Ed. Upadhyaya.
# Our contact email address is: editor.telegraphnepal@gmail.com