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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2009
Brian Houghton Hodgson lived and worked at the British Residency in Kathmandu from1820 to 1843, and served as British Resident in Nepal for the last ten of these years.1 Hedied in 1894, and some 25 years after his death Perceval Landon wrote:
Some time ago my attention was arrested by the remark of Mr. Cecil Bendall who, writing in 1886, while Hodgson was still alive, referred to him as ‘the greatest, and least thanked of all our English Residents’. It is difficult to dispute either adjective. Hodgson was indeed more than the greatest ofEnglish Residents. He was the founder of all our real knowledge of Buddhism. He was the only manwhose infinite variety of scholarship and interest could, unaided, have written the true history of Nepal.
1 This article is based on the Hodgson Memorial Lecture, delivered at the Anniversary General Meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society in London on 12 May, 1994.
2 Perceval Landon, Nepal (London, 1928), i, p. 85.Google Scholar
3 Not is the architecture of the Valley mentioned or described in the many letters from which Hunter quotes in his hagiographic biography. (SirHunter, William Wilson, Life of Brian Houghton Hodgson. London, 1896.)Google Scholar
4 The most detailed description of the Dhoka, Hanuman, Vajracarya's, Gautamavajra Hanuman Dhokaka Rajadarbar (Kirtipur, BS 2033 (1976/1977))Google Scholar is currently available only in Nepali, but some of the information it contains appears in Slusser's, Mary Shepherd Nepal Mandala. A Cultural Study of the Kathmandu Valley (Princeton, 1982).Google Scholar For descriptions of the palace squares of each of the three cities of the Kathmandu Valley, see Hutt, Michael, with Gellner, David N., Michaels, Axel, Rana, Greta and Tandan, Govinda, Nepal. A Guide to the Art and Architecture of the Kathmandu Valley (Gartmore, 1994).Google Scholar
5 The Shah kings left the Hanuman Dhoka for a neo-classical extravaganza at Narayan Hiti, on the northern edge of the old city, during the reign of Prithvi Bir Bikram Shah at the end of the nineteenth century. This has since been replaced by a modern palace complex.
6 Shrestha, Chandra B., Khatry, Prem K., Sharma, Bharat and Ansari, Hamid, The Historic Cities of Asia. Kathmandu (Kathmandu, 1986), pp. 31, 35.Google Scholar
7 A tol (in Nepali) or tvaḥ (in Newari) is a block or quarter in an urban settlement.
8 Op. cit., pp. 9, 11–12.Google Scholar
9 Sanskrit kāṢṭha, “wood” > Nepali kāṭh; Sanskrit maṇḍapa, “pavilion, shelter” > Newari maḍu. In modem Nepali, the capital is known as kāṭhmāḍaũ.
10 Pal, Pratapaditya, VaiṢṇava Iconology in Nepal (Calcutta, [1970], 1985), pp. 88–90.Google Scholar
11 Vajracarya, , op. cit., p. 12.Google Scholar
12 Slusser, (op. cit., pp. 197–8) provides a brief description of this much-lamented building.Google Scholar
13 Ibid., p. 190.
14 Oldfield, Hector Ambrose, Sketches from Nepal, second Indian reprint (publisher and place not stated), 1981, p. 105.Google Scholar
15 Ibid., p. 97.
16 Slusser, , op. cit., p. 63.Google Scholar
17 Vajracarya, (op. cit., pp. 15–16) argues that during the Malla period the palace was known as the gunapo palace, but is unable to establish the meaning or etymology of the word gunapoGoogle Scholar. Slusser, (op. cit., p. 189) suggests that it might have some connection with the name of the tenth-century king Gunakamadeva.Google Scholar
18 The status of the term “Newar” as an ethnonym has been the subject of scholarly debate for many years, and it appears not to have been used during the first few centuries of the Malla period. (Slusser, (op. cit., p. 9) states that the first use of the word occurs in an inscription from 1654.)Google Scholar
19 Slusser, , op. cit., p. 76.Google Scholar
20 Ibid., p. 78.
21 Whelpton, John, Kings, Soldiers and Priests. Nepalese Politics 1830–1857 (New Delhi, 1991), p. 41.Google Scholar
22 Hunter, , op. cit., p. 102.Google Scholar
23 Ramakant, , Indo-Nepalese Relations (New Delhi etc., 1968), p. 80.Google Scholar
24 Hunter, (op. cit., p. 183) quoting Secret Consultations No. 24, of 5 March 1833.Google Scholar
25 Ibid., p. 183.
26 Ibid., p. 185.