National Symbols of Nepal

The national insignias are in a way theme of a particular nation. These are the symbols and things that the inhabitant of that nation respect and want to be respected. In a way, these symbols are attached with the conscience of the citizens of that nation.

National Flag of Nepal
The national flag of Nepal is distinct in itself. First of all, it is not rectangular as the flags of other countries are. Then again it is not a single banner but a combination of two banners. It has a red with a blue border around the unique shape of two overlapping right triangles. The smaller, upper triangle bears a white stylized moon and the larger lower triangle bears a white 12-pointed sun. Both these triangles bear the signs of two ruling dynasties respectively.

National Emblem of Nepal
The national emblem of Nepal consists of the Rhododendron flower followed by a white cow. In the left are a green Pheasant and two Gorkha soldiers. One of the soldiers is carrying a Khukri, a bow, and an arrow and the other has a modern rifle. In the background are the various peaks of the Himalayas Mountain. It also has the moon and the sun, both with faces showing caste marks. In the foreground are two crossed Nepalese Flags and Khukri, the footprints of Gorakhnath, the guardian deity of the Gorkhas, wearing the royal headdress. At the base of the design a red scroll carries the national motto in Sanskrit " Janani janmabhumis cha, swarga tapi gariyase" (The mother and the motherland are both dearer than heaven).

National Bird and Animal of Nepal
National bird and animal of Nepal are Lophophoros and Cow respectively. These creatures are the most revered in the entire Kingdom of Nepal. The cow being the thing of reverence in Hinduism has a special place in the heart of the Nepalese. Therefore forget beef till the time you are in Nepal. Don't mention it and never ever ask for it.

Art & Craft

Nepalese art is heavily inspired from Hinduism and Buddhism. The 2 millennium old Hindu and Buddhist heritage has survived various onslaughts and is still influencing the Nepalese art and craft tradition. Following are the various art and craft forms of Nepal.

Architecture
While walking through streets of Kathmandu you will notice the abundance of religious architecture in the city. Temples and Pagodas are strategically built around royal palaces as well as public places such as hilltop, riverbanks and community wells. Private temples were built by affluent class and can be located in almost every neighborhood. You will certainly notice the magnificent stone and woodcarvings on the temple and pagoda walls. Most of the stone carvings are from the eleventh and twelfth centuries and reflect the influence of Indian art from the Gupta period that stretched between 5th and 6th century A.D. Wood carvings are predominantly from the eighteenth century and is used to decorate pillars, doors and window frames, cornices and supporting struts. Struts of Hindu temples and pagodas of early Buddhist periods usually contain an erotic scene that attracts speculation from visitors. According to Vedas, the Hindu religious texts, sexual union also represents the union of the individual with the universe. Till 16th century, sex was not considered taboo in most of the parts of India and Nepal.

Painting
The history of painting in Nepal stretches as early as 11th century AD, when efforts were made through illustrations drawn on the manuscripts made of palm leaf or rice paper. Thangkas, a more predominant form of painting, are popular among Buddhists in Nepal. An art form similar to it is also popular among Lama Buddhism in Tibet. Texts prove that it dates back to the late 14th century. These paintings are predominantly done on cotton and are rectangular in shape, though other forms have also been traced. They are framed with three stripes of Chinese brocade of blue, yellow and red, which represent the rainbow that separates sacred objects from the material world. Older Thangkas consisted of mineral-based colors. Frequent themes of Thangkas include images of Buddhist figures, mandala designs, the wheel of life design and depiction of scenes from religious stories.

Bronze Figures
Bronze figures, sometimes alloyed with copper, appeared in the Nepal valley around 8th century AD. Recent excavations have found statues that are even older. Typical of other art forms these images usually represent religious deities or legendary figures. The most frequently used production technique is that of "Cire Perdue", that is a form of wax casting and became popular in Europe at the time of renaissance. Images often contain embedded semi-precious stones, usually coral or turquoise, or are gilded with gold.

Pottery
The pottery craft of Nepal is unique in itself. This tradition generally flourishes in Patan and Thimi, a locality near Bhaktapur. The most common form of pottery is the terracotta oil lamps used to light homes during the Hindu festival of light called Dipawali. Apart from that you can also find flower pots decorated with pictures of peacocks and elephants. These are good for mementoes.

Best Time To Visit

The best season to visit Nepal is after the monsoons that end in August, and before the winter sets in. The months between September and December are the most preferred ones by the visitors. The rains wash the dusty tracks and the valley looks magnificent with blooming flowers. Post -Monsoon Nepal welcomes you with flower-laden plains and brimming rivers. It is humid in plains at that time but it is still better than the scorching heat of the summers.

It is best to visit hilly areas in summers; that is, the month of May and June. The average temperature at that time hovers around 22-25 Celsius. Nights are a bit chilly in the lower Himalayan region but are comfortable. Mountainous areas are extremely unsafe in the Monsoons. The persistent rains make the hilly tracts slippery. The landslides are very common in the monsoons. Again in the post-monsoon months, you can start for the hill tours.

In winters, most of the hilly areas become out of bound due to very heavy snowfall and avalanches. But if you are fond of snowfall then you can opt for lower Himalayan regions that look beautiful in the blankets of snows.

Mount Everest

Revered as Chomolungma ("goddess mother of the world") by Tibetans and called Sagarmatha ("goddess of the sky") in Nepal, Mount Everest is the highest mountain peak in the world. Till the advent of 19th century it was known as Peak XV among Westerners. This name was given because of the fact that it was the 15th peak to fall in sight when one starts counting peaks from the Nepalese side. This name was given to Everest way before surveyors established that it was the highest mountain peak on Earth. When this fact was first revealed, it came as a rude shock to the climbers because Peak XV looked smaller than the other Himalayan peaks in the surrounding area. The point of reference and direction were the main reasons behind this illusion.

Although Everest had commanded attraction for many years, it was as late as 1852 that this giant was first measured. Though some sporadic efforts for its measurement were done earlier too but all of them were abandoned in the middle. In the year 1852, The British Trigonometrical Survey of India measured Everest's elevation as 29,002 feet above the sea level. How could, with such limited means and such primitive instruments, anyone find the actual height of the Everest? But surprisingly, that figure was extremely close to the actual height. This remarkably accurate figure remained the officially accepted height for more than one hundred years. It was only in the year 1955 that this figure was slightly adjusted. The adjusted height was merely 26 feet adrift of the 1852 figure. The adjusted figure stands at 29,028 feet (8,848 m). The mountain received its official name in 1865 in honor of Sir George Everest, the British Surveyor General from 1830-1843 who had mapped the Indian subcontinent. He had some reservations about having his name bestowed on the peak, arguing that the mountain should retain its local appellation; a standard policy of the then geographical societies. His thoughts were in accordance to the Victorian norms of that era.

The expeditions to the summit started as early as 1924 when two British climbers tried to scale the Everest. They never returned. After many unsuccessful efforts, came the year 1951. A British expedition led by Eric Shipton and Edmund Hillary, traveled into Nepal to survey a new route via the southern face. Taking their cue from the British, in 1952 Raymond Lambert and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay turned back just 200 meters short of the summit. In 1953, The British expedition, led by John Hunt, returned to Nepal. The first effort failed miserably when the climbers got exhausted. The next day, the expedition made its second and final assault on the summit with its fittest and most determined climbing pair. The New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay from Nepal climbing the South Col Route eventually reached the summit at 11:30 am local time on May 29, 1953. At the time, both acknowledged it as a team effort by the whole expedition, but Tenzing revealed a few years later that Hillary had put his foot on the summit first. They paused at the summit to take photographs and exchange sweets and buried a small cross in the snow before descending. News of the expedition's success reached London on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II coronation. The Queen took it as a good omen and Knighted Hillary and Hunt.

Nepali Music

The rhythm, beats, bounce of Nepali traditional folk and classical music is spiritual enough to sooth you and entertaining enough to cheer you. Music is associated with every event in Nepal, then be it birth, marriage, festivals or National events.

Various songs, musical instruments and dances are connected with various religious, social and cultural lives of the Nepalese. Music is the heartbeat of Nepal. Music is associated to every event of life, then be it festivals, feasts, marriage, birth ceremonies or funeral processions. The main genres of Nepali music are pop, rock, folk, and classical. There are a number of other genres that are yet to be cataloged.

The following music genres have their roots in Nepal and are therefore considered to be indigenous. This includes: -

Newar Music
The Newars are well known for their Newar music. It mainly consists of percussion instruments, some wind instruments and no string instruments. All the castes have their musical tunes and bands. People of all walks of life cherish music. There are tunes of certain festivals and seasons and even of certain times of day. The God of artists called Nâsadya is found in all the Newar localities. The presence of a Newar musical band in a guthi is considered as a sign of opulence.

Khas Music
Khas music belongs to the Khas society where castes like Damai used to play a number of instruments on occasions such as marriages, birth and other feasts. This tradition is now on decline owing to the growing popularity of television, radio and other means of mass communication. The minstrels used to play instruments like Sarangi but even the Gaine are declining in number.

Nepali Rock
The rock music strata of Nepal got birth due to the arrival of Hippies in the Kathmandu valley. The epicenter of Rock and Rock-n-Roll during those days used to be Freak Street. The street was notorious for its marijuana, grass, hash and ganja that attracted many psychedelic rockers. The first recorded Rock and Roll song of Nepal is "diunlaa" by Kumar Basnet. With the advent of time, the rock scene in Nepal changed from the early rock to Punk and Metal. However, most of the bands that performed during metal era didn't produce many originals. Most of them were either blatant copy of western rock or slightly improvised cover version of the same. The present scene music of Nepal includes several popular rock and roll bands, including Nepathya, Robin N Looza, Mukti and Revival, and the long-running Cobweb.

People Of Nepal

Perched on the Southern slopes of the Himalayan Mountains, the Kingdom of Nepal is ethnically diverse. The Nepalese are descendants of three major migrations. These migrations have taken place from India, Tibet, and Central Asia. Among the earliest inhabitants were the Newar of the Kathmandu Valley and aboriginal Tharu in the southern Tarai region. The ancestors of the Brahman and Chetri caste groups came from India, while other ethnic groups trace their origins to Central Asia and Tibet, including the Gurung and Magar in the west, Rai and Limbu in the east, and Sherpa and Bhotia in the north.

In the Tarai, which is a part of the Ganges basin, much of the population is physically and culturally similar to the Indo-Aryan people of northern India. People of Indo-Aryan and Mongoloid stock live in the hill region. The mountainous highlands are sparsely populated. Kathmandu Valley, in the middle hill region, constitutes a small fraction of the nation's area but is the most densely populated, with almost 5% of the population.

Nepal's 2001 census enumerated 103 distinct caste/ethnic groups including an "unidentified group". The caste system of Nepal is rooted in the Hindu religion while the ethnic system is rooted in mutually exclusive origin myths, historical mutual seclusion and the occasional state intervention.

History of Nepal

The history of Nepal can broadly be divided in to three phases, Ancient, Medieval and Modern. The history of the Nepalese monarchy has been the integral and inseparable part of the history of Nepal. Nevertheless, Nepal has much more than Monarchs when it comes to realm of history. It has a Vedic past to boast about and a bright feature to look to.

Ancient History of Nepal

The history of Nepal dates back to 11000 years. The recent excavation in the Kathmandu valley has found out Neolithic tools. These tools were used at the advent of Neolithic era and many of them date back to 9000 B.C. This tells about the pre-Aryan settlement in the then Nepal. These people were of Bhutanese-Mongoloid parentage. Nepal once again gets mentioned in the Hindu epic of Ramayana. It is said that Janakpur, in the Tarai Nepal, has been the birthplace of Sita, the wife of Rama. Nepal is mentioned as Kirat Pradesh in the epic Mahabharata that is said to be composed around 1000 B.C. This place has been mentioned many a times in the epic. It is mentioned that the concerned king supported Kaurvas against the Pandavas in the battle. In the years around 500 B.C, Nepal had many small kingdoms and the most powerful among them were Shakyas of Kapilvastu. It was in the house of one of the Shakya kings that Gautam Siddhartha was born. He got the name of Buddha when he was enlightened. In the later era Nepal fall under the rule of the Maurya. Ashoka finds mention in many of the rock edicts. In the post-Christ era, the Licchhavis of Bihar ruled Nepal. There are many historical edicts that glorify the reign of Licchhavis.

The Medieval History of Nepal
Nepal remained largely undisturbed in the medieval period. Mallas used to rule Nepal and were largely confined to their own territories. In the sultanate era, there were some attempts of assault on Nepal but they were met with sporadic successes only. The relief and the climate of Nepal have always served as its military generals. It was king Jaisthitimalla who tried to bring Nepal under one reign in the late 14th century. The unification was short-lived and Nepal got divided in to 3 kingdoms namely, Kathmandu, Patan and Bhadgaon. Apart from these, in the medieval period, Nepal was largely peaceful. May be that lull was going to bring a severe storm.

The Modern History of Nepal

The modern history of Nepal starts with the establishment of the Gorkha kingdom by Prithvi Narayan Shah in the 18th century. He had his own designs and wanted to unite the various warring kingdoms of Nepal. He was largely successful in his attempts of invasion. He annexed a large area of Bhutan and Tibet. His designs were later put to action by his successors. Their attempts hit a roadblock at the advent of the 19th century. The British East India Company got apprehensive of their maneuvers and took them head on. The kingdom was soundly humiliated and routed in the Anglo-Nepalese war of 1816. They had to agree to some of the very insulting terms, on the negotiation table. They conceded the entire Gadhwal and Kumaon region to the British India. In the same decade, Jung Bahadur, one of the valiant generals of Shahs tried to topple the regime. The queen met the efforts with the bloody counter initiatives. This led to various massacres on both sides. The Kot massacre is considered to be the bloodiest of them all where close to 30,000 Nepalese were chopped to death in matter of hours. This started the century long conflict between the Shahs and Ranas, the descendants of Jung Bahadur. In later years close to 20th century, both the warring dynasties established matrimonial relations between them and started to rule Nepal jointly. This pact is evident on the flag of Nepal as well. The two triangular flags, that are the part of a single flag, represent these two dynasties.

Nepalese Economy

There is nothing much to talk about when it comes to Nepalese economy. The data doesn't paint a rosy picture at all. In fact the picture looks grim. Nepal is among the poorest and least developed countries in the world. In fact Nepal doesn't stand anywhere to its otherwise developing neighbors such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Thanks to the Sub-Sahara African countries, it is not considered the poorest economy now. Nevertheless, with almost 45% of its population living below the poverty line, Nepal has to do much catching before being termed a Developing Economy.

Agriculture is the mainstay of the economy, providing a livelihood for three-fourths of the population and accounting for 38% of GDP. Most of the agriculture activities take place in the Tarai region. The sub-standard equipments and pesticides along with the medieval mode of agriculture make it a tough affair. The industrial sector is in a dismal condition. Industrial activity mainly involves the processing of agricultural products including jute, sugarcane, tobacco, and grain. These things are hardly considered industrial activities by New-school economists.

Due to its long stint with monarchy and feudalism, Nepal has one of the most uneven distributions of resources and wealth in the Asia. This has led to the birth of counter initiative movements such as Maoism. Security concerns relating to the Maoist conflict and counter insurgency initiatives have led to a decrease in tourism, a key source of foreign exchange. Nepal has considerable scope for exploiting its potential in hydropower and tourism. These are considered the up coming hot cakes in New-wave economy. Prospects for foreign trade or investment in other sectors will remain poor, however. There are lots of reasons for this such as the small size of the economy, technological backwardness, landlocked geographic location, civil strife and its susceptibility to natural disaster

Nepal Food

The most prevalent Nepali dish is 'Daal, Bhaat and Tarkaari' (lentils, rice, vegetable curry respectively). This is the main course served in the most Nepalese houses irrespective of the economic conditions, that too in both lunch as well as dinner. Nepali food is much less spicy than Indian food, and many dishes are Tibetan in origin. It seems that Indian influence is only confined to Southwestern part of Nepal. The rest of Nepal has more of Tibetan and Chinese influence in their cuisines.

Two of the most exclusive and authentic Nepalese delicacies include 'Momos', a meat or vegetable filled dumpling that is similar to Chinese pot-stickers and Tibetan Bread and Honey; a puffy fried bread with heavy raw honey. Both of these items are good for a light breakfast but are insufficient for a full meal. One delicacy that you do not want to miss while in Nepal is the Dried meat. It makes a deadly combo with beer or any other alcoholic beverages. Newars, an ethnic group, are considered connoisseur of great foods. Watch out for Newari Restaurants. Surely it will be a great way to enjoy good food. In the Everest region try the local Sherpa dish of potato pancakes that are called Rikikul. They are delicious eaten straight off the griddle and covered with yak butter or cheese.

Nepal Culture

Nepal is blessed with a rich cultural heritage. Culture has been called 'the way of life for an entire society'. The statement holds particularly true in case of Nepal where every aspect of life, food, clothing and even occupations are culturally classified. In a society so feudalistic and so fractured across class lines, cultural heritage comes as a fresh wind. The culture of Nepal includes the codes of manners, dress, language, rituals, norms of behavior and systems of belief.

The culture of Nepal is a unique combination of tradition and novelty. The traditions are followed as they were and new customs are created to keep pace with the changing times. It is surprising to note that a country as poor, illiterate and backward as Nepal displays such flexibility when it come to incorporating traits from other cultures. Culture in Nepal is an assemblage of music, architecture, religion and literature. The mountain kingdom of Nepal is multi-ethic and multi-lingual. The land is rich with unique cultural groups like Tharu,Yadav, Ahir, Newars and others.

Nepalese are among the most hospitable hosts. This is the reason for which tourists from far and wide enjoy coming to Nepal time and again. Nepalese are culturally warm, hospitable and affectionate hosts who place their heart above their head. Religion is the lifeblood of the Nepalese. Officially it is a Hindu country, but in practice the religion is a syncretism of Hindu and Buddhist beliefs with a pantheon of Tantrik deities tagged on.

Nepal's food is surprisingly dull given that it lies at the intersection of the two great gastronomic giants India and China. Most of the time meals consist of a dish called dhal-bhat-tarkari that is a combination of lentil soup, rice and curried vegetables. It can hardly be considered, a dynamic national cuisine. On the other hand, Nepal has adapted famously to Western tastes, markedly evident in Katmandu's smorgasbord of menus: Mexican tacos; Japanese sukiyaki; Thai chocolate; Chinese marshmallows; onion and minestrone soup; borscht, quiche and soy burgers; and some of the best desserts - apple and lemon pies, almond layer cakes, fruit cakes - found anywhere in the world.