When did the Muluki Civil Code, 2074 come into force, and which statute did its contract part replace?

Contract law is the law of enforceable promises — private law's backbone: the rules by which voluntary agreements acquire legal force, and the remedies when they are broken. Its nature in five propositions: Private autonomy institutionalized: contract law exists to give effect to the parties' will (pacta sunt servanda's private face) — the freedom to contract, not to contract, with whom, on what terms — while policing the boundary where freedom injures fairness, third parties or public policy; The exchange's law: obligations created by agreement (the promise's world), unlike tort (obligations from wrongdoing) or unjust enrichment (obligations from gain) — the classical trichotomy of obligations; A default-and-coercive mix: much of contract law is default rules the parties may displace; the invalidity rules (capacity, free consent, legality) are mandatory floors no bargain can waive; Comparative by temperament: Nepal's contract law is a hybrid — codified civil-law form carrying Anglo-Indian doctrinal content (offer-acceptance, consideration, free consent's five vitiators) — the Indian Contract Act 1872's historical shadow over South Asian practice, on a French-influenced code's structure; The market's infrastructure: every transaction's skeleton, from the vegetable stall to the hydropower PPA — contract as society's trust machine for strangers, the planning instrument for the future, and the state's own tool (procurement, concessions, PPPs).