22 C. The Kiratas

1. The tradition: the Kirata dynasty — the longest prehistoric line; chronicles credit them with 16 to 32 rulers, from Yalambar (Yalamber) to Gasti, and an era remembered for war and expansion. Legend makes Yalambar a contemporary of the Mahabharata war. The Kirata fall to the Licchavis is the transition into history proper. 2. The historical reading: the Kiratas were (and are — the Rai, Limbu, Sunuwar, Yakkha peoples) an ancient Tibeto-Burman population of the eastern Himalaya; their rule in the Valley points to a pre-Sanskritic, Himalayan polity and culture. Traces: place-names, the Valley's pre- Hindu cults, and the continuity of Kirata communities in the east (their later history — kipat land tenure, the Sen kingdoms and the Limbuwan-Gorkha compact — returns in Units 4–5). 3. The Ashoka connection: the tradition of Ashoka's visit (c. 250 BC), marked by the four ancient stupas of Patan and the charum chihna (relics) — Nepal's entry into the Mauryan Buddhist world; (the Lumbini pillar of the same emperor is epigraphic fact, the Valley visit tradition). 4. Sources for this period are archaeology and tradition only — the vamshavalis' king-lists cannot be verified; hence "pre-historic". The point to make in exams: the traditional dynasties are not chronicle-facts but memory-strata of the Valley's early peoples — herders, then an Abhira wave, then the Kiratas —…