Khasa Malla kingdom

Origins

The Khasa Mallas emerged in the Karnali basin of western Nepal around the 12th century. Under Nagaraja they made Sinja, in the Jumla valley, their capital and expanded north into the Guge and Purang regions of western Tibet and south and east across the western Himalayan foothills.

Rule and society

Inscriptions and stone pillars, some in early Nepali written in Devanagari, record the kings and their donations. Ripumalla and Prithvimalla were among the most powerful rulers; Ripumalla left an inscription on the Ashokan pillar at Lumbini in 1312. The court supported Buddhist monasteries in Tibet and Hindu shrines in Nepal, and the kingdom grew rich on trans-Himalayan trade in salt, wool and grain. The Dullu inscription of Prithvimalla is a key source for its history.

Decline and legacy

By the late 14th century the kingdom fragmented into small principalities later known as the Baise Rajya, the twenty-two kingdoms of the Karnali region, among them the Kingdom of Jumla and the Kingdom of Doti. The language of its inscriptions is an ancestor of modern Nepali.