Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/320

 276 ARCHITECTURE IN THE HIMALAYAS. BOOK II. whose ancestors seem to have come from Vaijali and estab- lished themselves in Nepal, and who seem to have been some of them Vaishnavas and others Saivas. Their inscriptions apparently range from late in the 5th century till into the 7th, 1 when Amjuvarman founded a new dynasty, and possibly employed a Tibetan era in his inscriptions. 2 Buddhism had no doubt got a strong foothold among the Newars at an early date not improbably in the time of Asoka. ; but about the end of the 5th century, or soon after, we hear of the patriarch Vasubandhu in his old age going on a mission to Nepal vyith 500 disciples, and founding monasteries and making converts. The Newars had entered the country from the north, and were undoubtedly of Tibetan origin. 3 Like most of the Himalayan tribes they were snake - worshippers, and the Buddhist missionaries who visited them accepted their legends and made them part of their system. Hindu emigration into the valley must have begun early, and the kings of the long dynasty that ended about A.D. 600 all bear Hindu names, whilst their inscriptions indicate that they worshipped the Hindu gods. The Anmivarman or Thakuri dynasty were Vauyas like Harshavardhana, and were succeeded by other Rajput families. In 1097 Nanyadeva from Tirhut invaded and subjugated the country, and again in 1324 Harisimha, of the same race fearing the invasion of the Muhammadans under Ghyasu^-din Tughlak moved up from Simraun in the Tirai and, overcoming the petty chiefs, assumed the govern- ment. 4 But his dynasty does not appear to have ruled for a long period, and the four chief towns Bhatgaon, Banepa, Patan, and Kathmandu had each their own princes till the year 1768, when a weak sovereign having called in the assist- ance of a neighbouring Gurkha Raja, he seized the kingdom, and his successors still rule in Nepal. They apparently were originally of the Magar tribe, 5 but having mixed with the immigrant Hindus, call themselves Rajputs, and have adopted the Hindi! religion, though in a form very different from that known in the plains, and differing in a manner we would 1 The dates range from 386 to 518 of an era of his own from A.D. 595, or an undefined era. There are difficulties eleven years before Ilarsha's. in supposing the 5aka era to be meant, 3 The traditional connection of the and M. Sylvain Levi assumes a Lichch- havi era beginning A.D. in. The inscriptions are in classical Sanskrit, and testify to the literary culture of the country at that age. ' Nepal,' tome ii. 1 p. 324f. Newars with the Nayyars of Malabar is only a myth of Brahmanical invention in order to get over caste difficulties. 4 Sylvain Levi, ' Nepal,' tome ii. pp. 112, 114 2 M. Sylvain Levi supposes he started the Kingdom of Nepal,' p. 22. 5 Buchanan Hamilton, 'Account of