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A land of glorious rumors
Tara Nath Sharma
A
famous poet wrote the poem “Ours is a country of rumors!†and it became
so popular that everyone in the educated Nepali circle began to refer
to it day in day out. Today when I look at it with a cool mind I feel
that there is indeed a great deal of truth in the expression that the
Nepali people are completely given to rumors. There are ample instances
to prove this fact even from a cursory review of some of our current
happenings and we can dig the past as well. Rumors are never true nor
can they be supported on any emotional or national grounds. Yet all the
people from the so-called democratic leaders to the common citizens run
their daily activities and shape their thought patterns on silly rumors
all the time.
As
recently as a year or so ago, a crazy beggar spread a cruel rumor
saying that the whole of South Asia starting from Myanmar and covering
Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Pakistan would envelop our Motherland
under a terrible natural disaster of earthquake followed by epidemics,
famine and untold human misery. The beggar for an easy acquisition of
alms for him and his wife and children wore a fanciful hairy hat stuck
in and around with tridents as he went around the town of Kathmandu. As
we know the trident is a sacred weapon held by Shiva, one of the Hindu
Three Forms of God, the cheat had in mind that the people would easily
offer him food, clothes and other necessities of life if he wore the
symbols of Shiva on his head. This rumor-monger thought of a plan to
get more well-known through gimmicks to increase his income and,
therefore, he devised a rumor of natural disaster and distributed
pamphlets to the effect. He predicted the disaster to overwhelm the
South Asian people on June 22, 2007, which didn't happen as predicted.
Political
maneuverings currently going on in Nepal follow the same kind of
strategy. Like the trident holder's prediction fiasco, there are a few
interesting instances from the pages of history but because of the
rumors originating in remote past they are still held to be true
superstitiously by the general public. One such fallacious belief
belongs to the time when Prithvi Narayan Shah attacked Kirtipur in the
Kathmandu valley. The valiant people of Kirtipur naturally gave a stiff
resistance to the well-trained army of the Gorkha king proving the
invader's fallacious belief that he would easily run over any small
kingdom like Kirtipur as he did Nuwakot, Tanahun and others.
As
he attacked Kathmandu during the festival of Indra Jatra when the local
people were merrily engaged in religious and social festivities, the
people of Kirtipur drove the attackers back many times over. This
enhanced their prestige but the Kirtipur people could not hold longer
in the face of the Gorkha soldiers who were more numerous and more
experienced. Kirtipur fell and came under the dominance of Prithvi
Narayan Shah. Before the conquest of the whole valley by the Gorkha
army a Christian mission was working in Lalitpur. The mission had to
quit after the unification of Nepal by Prithvi Narayan Shah.
One
of the members of the mission knowingly or unknowingly interpreted a
Nepali idiom the wrong way when the local people expressed their
dissatisfaction at the defeat of the Kirtipur people saying that “they
let their noses cut†which in Nepali means “they lost their prestigeâ€
or “they couldn't maintain their dignity†by letting the Gorkha
fighters overrun them. Neither had Prithvi Narayan Shah ordered his men
to cut the noses, nor the ears of the fighters of Kirtipur, he would
never do that as there is no other historical instance that he ever did
that kind of heinous thing with the people he defeated. It was the
Christian missionary who being angry to be sent away either without
understanding the implication of the special Nepali idiom or by
following the habit of the British Empire's usual policy of “Divide and
rule†left behind an account of the Kirtipur defeat. And this rumor has
stayed on to create an unnecessary animosity among the ethnic
communities of our nation.
Another
very interesting historical blunder has defied all logic and the
so-called nationalists have become a total slave to this rumor. It
concerns with the currency of the Nepal Era. The era began when the
number 8 from the Shak era was dropped as inauspicious when the Shak
era of 801 and 802 brought untold human misery to the people of the
Kathmandu Valley with a devastating earthquake followed by terrible
famine due to lack of rain and dreadful diseases. That was the time
when a later Licchavi king named Raghav Dev ruled the valley. When the
king asked the people to drop the number 8 and only take the numbers 1,
2, 3 and so on the new system was named the Pashupati Bhattarak era to
make it auspicious by naming it after the God Pashupati or Shiva (the
Pashupatinath Temple is the seat of the national deity of Nepal). This
name continued for almost half a century. Slowly because of its long
name the people called it just the Pashupati era which later began to
be popularly known as the Nepal era.
But
most people today think and strongly believe that the Nepal era was
started by a civilian named Shankhadhar Sakhwa and the man has achieved
a great legendary fame. The belief has no historical basis whatsoever.
The
name of Shankhadhar Sakhwa began to appear only as late as when a
representative of the British Empire began to be deputed to Kathmandu.
One of such British officials, Daniel Wright, has for the first time
referred to Shankhadhar Sakhwa as the founder of the Nepal Samvat (era)
in his History of Nepal. He says that the source he quoted was the
Gopal Chronology, a native document, but the imaginary story was asked
by Wright to his two local assistants to include (to interpolate?) in
the chronology.
A
fairy tale type of episode has been found in the reference of
Shankhadhar Sakhwa which no scientific explanation can uphold. It is
described that an expert astrologer after calculating the exact
movements of the stars and planets predicted that the sand collected at
a particular point in time would turn into gold. He hired some workers
and sent them to the bank near the confluence of the Bagmati and
Vishnumati rivers to the south of Kathmandu in order to collect and
bring some sacks of sand on an exact time. The generous Shankhadhar
Sakhwa then distributed the gold to those who were in debt to repay
their loans. To commemorate the unusual event, the rumor continues, he
started the new era calling it the Nepal Samvat or the Nepal Era.
The
fairy tales of any country would be filled indeed with such interesting
events but such occurrences have never been seen in reality anywhere
and there is no scientific reason why it should in Kathmandu. But the
rumor has persisted so much so that the legendary generous Shankhadhar
Sakhwa has been declared a National Hero.
As
for the inauspicious nature of the number 8, Prithvi Narayan Shah
defeated the valley and unified the country exactly in 888 Nepal era!
Isn't that historically interesting?
(The writer is a visiting professor of Michigan State University)