Malla dynasty (Nepal)

The Malla dynasty ruled Nepal Mandala, the Kathmandu Valley and the lands around it in today's Nepal, from around 1200 until 1769. Under the Mallas the Newar civilisation of the valley reached its height, a rich urban culture on the trade route between India and Tibet whose temples and palace squares still define Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur. The dynasty ended when Prithvi Narayan Shah of Gorkha conquered the valley.

The name malla means "wrestler" in Sanskrit, implying strength. Arimalla, also called Aridev, who reigned from about 1200 to 1216, was the first king to bear it, and Nepal's rulers kept using it into the eighteenth century. Why he adopted it is unclear: one legend says he loved wrestling, while another view is that the title was simply fashionable in India at the time. Later Malla kings claimed descent from the Licchavis and, especially in Bhaktapur from the seventeenth century, from the Karnat dynasty of Mithila. Scholars such as Brinkhaus regard the Mithila link as a political construction, since early sources do not support it.

The early period was troubled. A separate line of Khas Malla kings in western Nepal raided the valley between 1275 and 1335. In 1255 an earthquake killed perhaps a third of Kathmandu's population, including King Abhaya Malla, and in the 1340s Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah, Sultan of Bengal, plundered the valley's Hindu and Buddhist shrines. After the Delhi Sultanate under Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq attacked Mithila in 1324, many migrants from there settled in the valley and joined Newar society. Contacts reached far: in 1260 a group of eighty artisans went to Tibet, among them Araniko, who rose to high office at the court of Kublai Khan.

Jayasthiti Malla, who married into the royal line of Bhaktapur, united the whole valley and ruled it alone from 1382 to 1395. He is credited with codifying Nepal's laws comprehensively for the first time, including rules of caste. His grandson Yaksha Malla (reigned about 1428–1482) marks the peak of a united Malla kingdom; he built the Mul Chok, the oldest surviving part of the Bhaktapur palace, and Newari came into wider use in official documents.

After Yaksha Malla's death in 1482 his sons divided the valley, and it settled into three rival kingdoms based on Kathmandu (Kantipur), Patan (Lalitpur) and Bhaktapur (Bhadgaon). They intermarried and attended each other's ceremonies, yet fought repeatedly over small gains. Their rivalry also drove a flowering of art: each court spent heavily on temples and palaces, financed by trade in wool, salt, musk and Chinese silk over the passes to Tibet, and in the mid-seventeenth century Nepal won the right to mint Tibet's coins. Pratap Malla of Kathmandu (reigned 1641–1674) built much of the Hanuman Dhoka palace and the Rani Pokhari pond. The Mallas adopted Taleju as their protective goddess and worshipped the Kumari, a living goddess. Mughal influence shaped their dress, painting and weapons, and Portuguese missionaries arrived after 1628.

Malla kings ruled as protectors of dharma and generous patrons of shrines, and Buddhism remained strong, especially in Patan. Religious endowments called guthi tied temple lands to families across generations, helping to preserve old art and texts. Nepal Bhasa (Newari) was the court language and lingua franca, with Maithili also used at court from the seventeenth century.

Outside the valley, dozens of small hill states competed, and the rising kingdom of Gorkha turned on the divided Mallas. In 1768–69 Prithvi Narayan Shah, after the Battle of Kirtipur, took Kathmandu during the Indra Jatra festival, then Patan and finally Bhaktapur. The last kings, Jaya Prakash Malla, Tej Narsingh Malla and Ranajit Malla, lost their thrones, and the Shah dynasty went on to build the modern Nepalese state.

Our maps label this area "Nepal" in 1200, 1492 and 1650, during Malla rule, between Tibet to the north and the states of the Indian plains, by 1650 the Mughal Empire, to the south.