5.2 The Administrative System of "Greater Nepal" under the Shah Kings

1. The King (Sri 5) — supreme executive, military head and fountain of justice; from 1806 the Mukhtiyar (chief minister) grew into a deputy-sovereign (the office Bhimsen Thapa made great — and Janga Bahadur inherited, 5.3). 2. Central organs: the Command Council (Bharadar) of great families — Chautariya (royal- blood ministers), Kaji (military-administrative nobles: the Pande, Basnyat, Thapa, Pantha houses), Bhandari (treasury), Dittha (justice), Khardar (records) — aristocratic collegiality with family-based faction (which ultimately produced the Kot, 5.3). 3. Provincial and local: the east under Subba governors; the hills under fortress-commandants and the old mukhiya/dittha network; the Valley's Newar institutions absorbed (the thari headmen retained); Badahakim governors generalising in the tarai; annexed Baise-Chaubise houses reduced to pension and jagir. 4. Land and revenue: the triad — jagir (revenue assignment for military-civil service: the state's salary system), birta (tax-free grants, religious and political), raikar (state-taxed peasant land); assessments and mauja-level collection through mukhiyami; kipat preserved in Limbuwan (per the 1774 compact); Tibet-trade monopolies (post-1792) and customs as the cash flow. 5. Military administration: the standing army (by 1814 among the largest in the subcontinent) organised in companies; the mustering (paltan) system with commanders drawn from the Kaji houses — the army as state, the state as army. 6. Justice: king's court → Dittha courts → local customary forums; the Dibya Upadesh's…