Note

Unification Campaign of Nepal:

Picture required:

Gorkha palace, map of Nepal showing Baise-Chaubise states, P.N.shah, Nuwakot palace, Kalu Pandey

 

Objective: To find out the unification campaign of Nepal and before Prithvi Narayan Shah and its achievements

 

Introduction:

In the olden days, Nepal was divided in to several tiny states. They had their own kings and certain area of the state. They were weak and powerless. On top of that, they didn’t have good relation with each other. The number of tiny states increased and decreased due to unification and separation time and again. Several powerful kings of those tiny states in different periods tried to unify them in to a big nation but the credit goes to Prithvi Narayan Shah of Gorkha. Some of the powerful rulesr who tried to unify such tiny states are:

  1. Mandeva who is considered as the pioneer unifier of Nepal, extended his territory of Nepal from Vaishali to Kushinagar.
  2. Nag Raj of Karnali region captured some parts of Tibet, Sinja and its neighboring Khasa states and extended his territory up to Trishuli in the east, Gadhwal and Laddhakh in the west.
  3. Ashok Challa, another ruler of Sinja had annexed Kumaun, Bodhgaya and some parts of Tibet.
  4. Hari Singh Dev of Tirhoot empire conquered the whole Mithila area and southern plains.
  5. Jayasthiti Malla encountered Muslim rulers and captured some Muslim ruled areas.
  6. Yakshya Malla extended his kingdom up to Morang in the east, Mithila, Magadh and Gaya in the south, Trishuli in the west and Sikarjong in the north.
  7. Mukunda Sen of Palpa expanded his kingdom up to the Mechi river in the east and Kumaun in the west but his sons divided the state in to small kingdoms and started ruling them separately.

Kulmandan Khan ruled over Nuwakot and later he annexed Kaski to his kingdom. He acquered the title of ‘Shah’ from the emperor of Delhi. Yashobramha Shah was the youngest son of Kulmandan Shah. Yashobramha Shah had 2 sons-Narahari Shah who ruled over Lamjung and drabya Shah who established independent Gorkha state and started ruling over it. After Drabya Shah, Ram Shah, Dambar Shah, Krishna Shah, Rudra Shah, Prithvipati Shah, Narabhupal Shah and Prithvi Narayan Shah ruled over Gorkha.

 

Prithvi Narayan Shah was born to Kausalyawati, the second wife of Narabhupal Shah. He was brave, clever and courageous from his childhood. He got all required education and trainings from his elder mother Chandrapravawati and Aryal and Joshi families. His stories related to his mother swallowing the sun in her dream and his meeting with the god Gorakh Nath are very interesting and relevant to his mission in his life later. He had marriage relation with the state of Makawanpur and Benaras.

 

When Prithvi Narayan Shah was returning back to Gorkha from Makawanpur, he saw the beautiful Nepal valley from Chandragiri hill and wanted to be the king of this valley. His dream to be the king of Nepal valley led him towards unification campaign