50 õ Routeing Democracy in the Himalayas

2
The Power of Script:

Formation of Kiranti Ethnicity∗

Phālgunanda’s Role in the

Martin Gaenszle

Particularly, in their initial stages, and to a certain extent even up to
the present, a number of ethnic movements in the former kingdom of
Nepal have had a clear religious component to them, alongside their
political dimension. Ethnicity marks out for itself a space between the
spheres of politics and religion, which are still little distinguished one
from the other in the region. In his attempt to classify the various forms
of resistance in the pre-modern state, David Gellner (2002a) defines
one of the four types identified by him as being characterised by the
surfacing of religious or religiously inspired leaders outside the elite. He
refers to an example from Central Nepal in one of the articles in the
collection he edited (see Gellner 2002b): the unsuccessful rebellion of
Lakhan Thapa. But there is a second — and ultimately more successful —
one: the founding of the Kiranti movement at the beginning of the
twentieth century by the ascetic and reformer Phālgunanda. The resis-
tance put up by the tribal minorities to their Hindu rulers — and their
emancipation — added up to a redefinition and reinvention of their
own religion. But, as the example of the Kirantis shows, what is one’s
own is defined in terms of the ‘Other’: in this case ‘one’s own’ script —
the equal of the Devanagari script of the Sanskritic tradition — played
a crucial role as a symbol of civilisation.
This chapter concerns itself with Phālgunanda (1885–1949), the
extraordinary but hitherto little explored figure mentioned above, and
with the story of his pursuits. He is regarded by the Kirantis in Nepal
 The Power of Script õ 51

as an outstanding pioneer in the struggle to advance the ethnic and

linguistic interests of this heterogeneous minority. The various languages
of the Kiranti (Limbu and the more than two dozen Rai tongues) form
an independent family within the Tibeto-Burman family. But, though
there are large variations in cultural details, the Kirantis are conscious
of their common origin and ethnic identity, which is marked above all
by the history of their disempowerment by the Shah kings (Gaenszle
2000). At the same time, the ascetic Mahāguru Phālgunanda has con-
tinued to be respected up to the present as a spiritual ideal and as the
founder of an independent religious tradition that uniquely combines
shamanic elements of a tribal culture with the Sanskritic tradition of
Hinduism. The issue under consideration, therefore, is the genesis of
the ethnic movement of the Kirantis in east Nepal between the poles
of political ethnicity and religious reorientation. This newly created
Kiranti religion has gained wide support, particularly among ‘modern’,
upwardly mobile Kirantis. To be sure, the original movement has under-
gone sundry divisions. It is sensible, for that very reason, to look back at
historical developments and to ask ourselves how it all began.

Script as Symbol
At the centre of Phālgunanda’s work is the dissemination of the so-called
Kiranti script as a medium for a newly defined — a reformed —
syncretic spirituality. It is well known that South Asia has produced a
large number of scripts; currently, more than a dozen types are taught in
the schools of India. Having a separate script raises group prestige and
strengthens group identity. The Kiranti script is regarded, particularly
by Limbus, as the primeval script of their ancestors, and many assume
that it originated in the second half of the first millennium. Some time
later, it is said, the script disappeared for more than 800 years, only to
be ‘rediscovered’ in the eighteenth century (Subba 1995: 32). This is
strongly reminiscent of the widely dispersed myth of the ‘lost script’
(Oppitz 2003). Whatever be the case, the current Kiranti script was
developed from a script that goes back to the Buddhist monk Srijanga,
who popularised it in the Limbu region in the eighteenth century.
This monk was a Limbu who belonged to a Sikkimese monastery and
presumably helped his ethnic brethren acquire literacy. This act was held
against him; Srijanga was murdered, to all appearances by the rulers of
Sikkim who may have looked upon such act as mutinous. The Srijanga
52 õ Martin Gaenszle

script that Phālgunanda ‘discovered’ was modified in Darjeeling at the

beginning of the twentieth century by I. S. Chemjong and others and
subsequently propagated. It is officially recognised today in Sikkim as
the script of the Limbu minority.
The instrumentalisation of a script as a mark of identity during the
formation of an ethnic resistance movement can be studied, then, on the
basis of the example provided by Phālgunanda and those who came after
him. Having a script of one’s own was decisive when it came to redefin-
ing an ancestral religious tradition in the face of political pressures being
exerted by the modern nation state: it allowed new cultural practices
and new models of identity to be created. In ethnological literature,
the Satyahangma movement founded by Phālgunanda is generally
accounted to have failed (Jones 1976; Subba 1995: 34), since it petered
out after the death of its founder. Today, however, this new religion is
again attracting followers, not only in east Nepal but also in Darjeeling
and Sikkim. As will be shown, the link between the written culture and
the tribal legacy has proven particularly appealing for sections of the
new educated middle class of east Nepal.

Phālgunanda’s Life
The following sketch of Phālgunanda’s life is based largely on his
biography written by two village teachers who were witnesses to the
activities of his later years (Gurung and Dahal 1990). It is, to be sure, a
hagiography of an ascetic, but a critical reading of it, supplemented by
other sources (including a number of interviews), allows the historical
path taken by his life to be partially reconstructed.

Childhood
Phālgunanda was born as Nardhoj Liṅgden in November 1885 (Vikram
Samvat 1942 Ka¯rtik 25 śuklapaks.a dvitı¯ya tithi, raviva¯r) in Cukcināmbā,
a small village some 18 km south of Ravi Bazar (Panchthar district,
east Nepal). He was the youngest son of a simple farming family of
the indigenous Limbu ethnic group. His father’s name was As.uvantā
Liṅgden, and his mother’s Ham.śamatı̄ Liṅgden. The area around Ravi
in the southern Limbu region, nestled within the Mahabharat mountain
range, was already then highly awash with Hindu ideas, but Nardhoj’s
father did not belong to any particular sect.
 The Power of Script õ 53

The name Phālgunanda was assumed by Nardhoj Liṅgden only

much later. As was customary in the region, the young boy was not
known by his birth name; rather, he had a nickname: Phalāmsingh.
This is explained in the following story: His elder siblings (a sister and
two brothers) having died at birth, his mother took special precautions
during her next pregnancy and avoided all forms of excitement. Fol-
lowing the birth of young Nardhoj, however, she was unable to still him
because of an enflamed nipple, so he was fed goat milk. Finally, when
he was presented to his relatives on his name-giving day, he was given
an iron ring as an amulet by an elderly woman. This is the reason he
was called from then on Phalāmsingh (iron + lion). This name, it is said,
later developed into Phālgunanda.
Soon after the boy’s birth, his mother died, and his father married
another woman. This seems to have left a mark on the boy’s childhood
which was already characterised in still other ways by much deprivation.
The young Phalāmsingh passed his early years as a shepherd, living a
retired, solitary life in the mountains. He was looked upon as a serious
youth, who seldom spoke. Soon, though, he showed signs of an unusual
calling. The episodes recounted in the biography contain many features
common to the initiatory accounts of shamans.
When Phalāmsingh was eight, it is told, strange things began to
happen. The boy was sent with food for his father who laboured in the
forests and high pastures. He had millet flour and a bit of dried meat
in his pockets. On the way the boy suddenly began to tremble, and
abscesses formed all over his body. When his parents (his father and step-
mother) later saw this, they became very worried and sent for shamans
(Nepali jh฀kri, Limbu phedangma) to determine the cause. But all of
this was to no avail. One day the boy disappeared into the forest, and
for all the searching that was done he could not be found. There he had
a meeting with the goddess Bhagawati. She commanded his respect, and
demanded that the boy no longer eat meat. Thereupon, his trembling
ceased, and his pain disappeared. The account tells of how at that
moment, leaves inscribed with golden letters rained from heaven. The
boy was dazzled, but he was able to understand the words with divine
help. After his return to the village, where everything was in turmoil, he
recounted his experience. And thenceforth he saw the goddess frequently
at night, and the golden letters always fell from heaven. In this way he
54 õ Martin Gaenszle

learned the rituals (karmaka.¯n. d. a) that he later disseminated throughout

the country.
This story is interesting in that it makes it clear that Phālgunanda’s
calling has a shamanic background to it. As a young Limbu, he was
doubtless familiar with these healers and their tradition not the least
because he himself experienced their rituals firsthand as a patient. Fur-
ther, the script already appears in the foreground. The script is ‘given’
to him as part of what transpires during his shamanic initiation. This is
a theme that recurs later.
Phalāmsingh’s parents were not happy in Cukcināmbā. The times
were hard, and they attempted to improve their financially strained life.
Thus, they moved first to Carkhola Jitpur (Tarai) and later to Bhutan.
Phalāmsingh wished to remain behind, though, in hopes of meeting his
goddess on further occasions, so he was put in the charge of an uncle
and his wife. These two, however, ate meat, and the boy did not feel
comfortable living with them. Soon he moved into a small hut nearby.
In order not to impose too much of a burden on the expenses of his
guardians, he began to raise chicken, which he sold beyond the border,
in Gundri Bazar (Darjeeling). This brought in a small income, but more
importantly, he came, for the first time, into contact with the wider
world.

In the army
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Great Game was in full
swing. In 1903, Lord Curzon planned to attack Lhasa on the assump-
tion that the Russians were present there. The prime minister of Nepal,
Chandra Shamsher Rana, sided with the British. Thus, it so happened
that Phalāmsingh, together with a friend who like him, wanted to see
something of the world and began to work for the British army as a porter
during a campaign to Lhasa. When crossing a high mountain pass, they
ran into a snowstorm. Many porters succumbed, but Phalāmsingh and
his friend were luckier. Four days later Phalāmsingh again had visions
of his goddess, heard mantras and once more saw the golden letters. He
began to memorise those syllables. This represents the actual beginning
of his life as a tapasvin (ascetic). He took his pay and returned to his
village.
However, his curiosity about the world outside was not satisfied. One
day, when his elder brother Rajvanta, who was serving in the British
 The Power of Script õ 55

army, came home on leave and told of what he had experienced on

foreign soil, Phalāmsingh was so impressed that he too decided to ‘cross
the seas’ and see other countries for himself. Shortly afterwards, once
his brother had returned to his company, he visited him in Burma. As
his biographers write, Phalāmsingh never intended to join the army, but
following a series of ‘misunderstandings’ (including being mistaken for
a candidate for enlistment), in 1907, the young man of 22 was inducted
in the army. To be sure, the military routine — daily parades, drills and
shooting practice — was not to his liking, but his brother made it clear
to him that he had to see out the three years’ training period.
Phalāmsingh continued his religious practice, that is, his bhakti seva¯,
and soon enjoyed the reputation of being a Tantric healer. He was
addressed as ‘Dhyani’ (dhya¯n in Nepali as well as other Indic languages
means ‘contemplation’). Once the three years of training were over, he
was urged by many to stay on. He acquiesced, and eventually spent
eight years in the company (up to 1915), attaining the rank of havaldar.
Soon after the beginning of the First World War, he, like many other
soldiers of the British army in South Asia, was sent to Europe to fight
the Germans. This phase of his life is not described in great detail, so
it is not clear where he was stationed in Europe and for how long. But
this is seen to be a key phase in his life, as captured by a number of
anecdotes in the oral accounts. Thus, it is reported that Phalāmsingh
when forced in the war to shoot at German soldiers shot up in the air
or at the ground. He was unable to aim at the enemy, in whom he
saw human beings like himself — human beings who had families and
were being sent to the battle front by others. Thanks to his belief in
the truth (satya) and the dharma, it is said, he miraculously remained
unharmed. It is further reported that Phalāmsingh had a vision of an
old Limbu woman who was carrying a dorser (thumse) full of bullets.
These were all the bullets that had been shot at him and had missed. In
short, the experience of the war strengthened and informed his beliefs
fundamentally. Following his return from Europe at the end of the war,
he left the army for good and went back to Nepal.

Pilgrimages of the wandering ascetic

A number of years passed during which Phalāmsingh gathered faith-
ful friends and adherents around himself, with whom he undertook
56 õ Martin Gaenszle

numerous journeys. He travelled to Bhutan, for example, to visit his

parents, who at first did not recognise him at all. He remained there for
some months and was revered by many local persons. In the winter of
1920/21 he set off on a pilgrimage to India that took him to the most
important holy places, including Banaras, Mathura, Rameshwar (South
India), Puri, Ayodhya, Haridwar and Badrinath. He thus became
acquainted, as a sa¯dhu or tapasvin, with the wide variety of Hindu
traditions.
Finally, he returned to Cukcināmbā, his birthplace. Numerous adher-
ents of the Josmani order had for some time been living there, in the
area around Ravi. This was a bhakti ‘sect’ which had acquired a large
following among the tribal groups of the Himalayas and northern
India. This tradition seems to have made a strong impression upon
Phalāmsingh from the very beginning. A disciple of Shashidar (a well-
known guru among the Josmanis) is said to have given Phalāmsingh the
name Phālgunanda. Thereafter, many members of this religious group
became his followers. In 1929, the first temple was built at Cukcināmbā
with funds collected by them. Subsequently, a series of other temples
were built in the region in the 1930s.
Phālgunanda was not a temple priest himself, even if he occasionally
lived in temples. He was first and foremost a sa¯dhu, a Shaiva ascetic who
had no fixed residence, roaming from place to place. As such, he was
also a kind of prophet and healer. The reputation that he had earned as a
young recruit with the nickname Dhyani grew as years passed: he came
to be known as a powerful Tantric. There are sundry anecdotes that seem
to indicate how much Tantric power, that is, magical powers (mantra-
tantra), he had. For example, it is said that he was able, by means of
his rituals, to prevent the incidence of landslides. Many of these stories
largely conform to the prototypical shamanic contest usually between a
lama and a shaman. These accounts describe how one healer challenges
another, and how the latter in the end gains the upper hand thanks to
his greater shamanic ability.1 The battle is fought with magical arrows
and mantric formulas. Competence in proclaiming oracles ( jhokana¯),
that is, the ‘truth’, also goes along with this contest. Phālgunanda was
able, it is claimed, to foresee events and recognise thieves. As far as these
supernatural capabilities are concerned, he can be equated with a trad-
itional shaman who is able to diagnose and cure diseases.
 The Power of Script õ 57

Reformer
But Phālgunanda’s activities were not only of a religious nature.
The Limbus, who found themselves coming increasingly under state
pressure in the first half of the twentieth century, resorted to resistance.
In redefining their interests within the Hindu kingdom of Nepal, they
began to reform their own traditions. One important event in this regard
was the meeting of the major Limbu leaders (known as das Limbu,
or ‘the ten Limbu’) in Silaute Danda in 1932. This was apparently
the largest political gathering in east Nepal during the Rana period.
Phālgunanda is said to have taken part in the meeting, during which
he delivered a speech that pointed in new directions of a reformed civil
society. He called upon the Limbus to reform their tribal traditions in
a fundamental way. This included, in particular, the abolishment of
marriages by capture, the dowry system, the practice of dancing during
burials and, above all, the consumption of alcohol, tobacco and meat.
Moreover, he demanded of his Limbu brethren that they provide their
children (boys and girls) schooling. This gathering came up with a
declaration, known as the Yakthuṅg Cumluṅg Satya Dharma Muculka¯.
This marked the beginning of the Limbu movement as a conscious
redefinition of ethnic identity.
Many episodes gave expression to Phālgunanda’s educational and
rationalist outlook. There was a period of drought (presumably at the
beginning of the 1940s) during which people asked Phālgunanda to per-
form a ritual to bring rain. Traditionally, blood offerings were brought
on such occasions, but this was strictly rejected by Phālgunanda. He
asked: ‘Why should a god who is angered by the use of violence send
rain?’ Instead, he counselled people to engage in reforestation, explaining
to them that uncontrolled logging was what had created the conditions
for droughts in the first place. To be sure, he proceeded to carry out
the rituals, but it was obvious to him that this alone would have been
of no use.
It was upon the political processes above all, though, that Phālgunanda
exerted his influence most within the Kirant region. The great social
problem of the times was the indebtedness of the Limbus and mort-
gaging of their lands to moneylenders (mostly of the Brahmin caste)
(Caplan 1970). Phālgunanda warned the Limbus that they were losing
their ancestral land (kipat. ) through their own folly: they borrowed so
58 õ Martin Gaenszle

much money that they could no longer repay their debts and had to
mortgage their land. For Phālgunanda, this was, in the first instance, a
problem that could be solved by living life properly: were the Limbus to
live a ‘true’ life without such vices as gambling, alcohol and meat, they
would be able to avert the poverty brought on by the loss of land. Thus, by
reforming their lives, they could recover their earlier economic strength
and political power.
It is not clear how well-defined Phālgunanda’s political programme
was. It has possibly been downplayed by his biographers. In any case,
we know that the Limbu leader had foes who called him an enemy of
the state and made trouble for him. For instance, when Phālgunanda
returned from one of his Himalayan pilgrimages in 1938, some of
his opponents lodged a case against him. A certain Kancan Giri of
Dhankuta accused him of treason (ra¯jadroha) for supposedly having
campaigned throughout the Limbu region for an independent Limbu
state. Phālgunanda was sought out by authorities for questioning before
a tribunal. When they found him, they were astonished at having a
mere ascetic before them who claimed to have done nothing other
than build temples and encourage people to live better lives. He was
taken to Dhankuta, where he was interrogated by the bad. a hakim (chief
officer) of the district, Madhav Shumsher Rana. When the accuser,
Kancan Giri, was asked whether Phālgunanda was the guilty party,
he denied that he knew him, and professed distress at having brought
charges against him. The latter was now treated as a guest of honour.
The ascetic’s serene appearance had obviously convinced them of his
innocence. Phālgunanda was looked upon more as a holy man and less
as a political activist.
This is not to say that Phālgunanda had no enemies. It is reported
that a charge was brought against him in Ilam of having purportedly
forced people to contribute offerings and donations to his temple. The
charge was later dropped after he faced his accusers in court.

The discovery and dissemination of the script

In the years that followed, Phālgunanda undertook many other pil-
grimages with his closest adherents, principally in the Himalayas, whose
remoteness and tranquillity he prized. During one of these journeys,
in 941, he and his disciples made a discovery. On the banks of river
Kaveli, on the way to Dudh Pokhari, they saw something sparkling in a
 The Power of Script õ 59

waterfall during their halt for rest. Upon closer examination, they found
signs carved on the rock, ones that evidently were the vehicle of mantras
(mang mang mung mung hang hang hung hung sang sang sung sung chang
chang chung chung, as they are rendered in the biography [Gurung and
Dahal 1990: 28]). They copied the signs and later came to realise that
they were written in the Kiranti script.
Several years later, Phālgunanda devoted himself to researching and
disseminating this script. Keen to learn more about it, he set out in
search of documents. An acquaintance, Srijanga Sinthebe, showed him
a number of manuscripts, and these turned out to contain more or less
the same script as the one found at the waterfall. From the two types
of script Phālgunanda and Srijanga Sinthebe developed a form that was
suitable for printing of books. One of his main disciples, Badrinanda,
along with a second one called Ranadhoj, engaged in producing print
blocks carved from wood. The first book that was produced in this
manner bore the title Yakthum sak sak ra sak nam; it dealt with the
script itself.
The goal was then to use this script as a medium of instruction for
the education of the Limbus. Phālgunanda sent out the appeal to dis-
seminate the script in all valleys ‘like a monsoon rain’. Some of the
texts were meant for use in domestic rituals. This is the reason why
numerous karmaka¯n. d. a texts were printed, that is, texts employed dur-
ing rites of passage (for example, name-giving, marriage, or purification
ceremonies).
In this context, it should be pointed out that such publishing activ-
ity in Nepal of the 1940s amounted to an act of political conspiracy. The
Ranas did not tolerate any publication by private persons; the printing
of books was the prerogative of state institutions. The state published
works principally in the national language, Nepali. The printing of
books in other scripts was looked upon as an expression of separatist
intentions.
Interestingly, the first book was printed not only in the Kiranti script,
but also in Devanagari (that is, the script used for Nepali, among other
languages). Thus, readers could read the text without any problem and
familiarise themselves with the ‘new’ script. As illustrations, images of
Kirateshwar Mahadev, Parbati, Vishnu and Laksmi were added in the
book.
60 õ Martin Gaenszle

Iman Singh Chemjong, who played a leading role in the 1920s in

disseminating the Kiranti script from his base in Darjeeling, was inci-
dentally involved in the publication of this first book (Gaenszle 2002).
It was he who extended and modified the earlier variant, the Srijanga
script, so that it could more easily be used in place of Devanagari. Little
is known of the exact nature of relationship between Chemjong and
Phālgunanda. It is only in this connection that Chemjong is mentioned
in the biography and that too only alongside others. It is possible that
there was a certain competitive relationship between the two: both
are today regarded as the disseminators of the Kiranti script, but their
ideological approaches were very different. Whereas Phālgunanda was
primarily a religious person, Chemjong regarded himself as an intel-
lectual. He was later called upon by King Mahendra to become a
professor at the newly founded Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu
(Limbu 1978).
The dissemination of the Kiranti script was for Phālgunanda only
part of a more comprehensive agenda. Above all, he was concerned with
disseminating an ethical message: everyone should strive for truthful-
ness (satya). This meant not only honesty, or not lying, but also a general
ideal of renounciation of violence, that is, not killing other living beings
and avoiding strife and dissension. A ‘pure’ lifestyle, characterised by
vegetarianism, moderation and generosity, was part and parcel of this
message. The study of scripts also figures in this connection, first and
foremost as a meditative, ascetic practice that stills the mind, putting it
into a spiritual state. But Phālgunanda was also concerned about edu-
cation in a broader sense. Reading and writing were important precon-
ditions for his ethical and religious reforms.

Old age and death

Phālgunanda remained much in demand as a healer to the end of his
days. In 1944 he was even invited by General Bikram (Shamsher Rana?),
presumably the son of Juddha Shamsher, to Kathmandu. The general’s
wife suffered from chronic fits and a lack of appetite, and was regarded
as mentally unstable. Phālgunanda was sent for upon the advice of the
family priest (Baraguru Dviparaj), and after some thought, he finally
set off and reached Kathmandu via Jogbani by the Indian railways, a
route that took the shortest time. He diagnosed the disease as possession
by Panchtharni Maharani and cured the victim by appropriate ritual
 The Power of Script õ 61

means. The general himself, who suffered from rheumatism, was also
restored to health. The ascetic from the east was offered a princely sum
(`500) as fee, but he turned it down, reportedly saying that he ‘did not
want to feel under any obligation’. Following visits to various temples
of the Kathmandu Valley (including Kirateshwar), he returned to east
Nepal. This episode shows that Phālgunanda was not hesitant to put
himself at the service of those in power. He was treated by them with
respect as a healer and seer, if not as a Limbu. Interestingly, it is reported
that he was asked what the future of the Ranas looked like. After a brief
pause, it is said, he replied that he saw an overturned flag: not much
more time seems to have been allotted them. Whatever truth there is
to this anecdote, there is no doubt that the signs of the time signalled
change.
In the spring of 1949, Phālgunanda felt that his end was approaching.
He left the temple of Cukcināmbā and took to the mountains, wandering
first to Ravi and from there in the direction of Silauti. His disciples
noticed that something was amiss. When people he met along the way
asked for a seva¯ pa¯ja¯, he reacted angrily: ‘Do the puja yourselves. When
I’m dead, that’s how you’ll have to do it.’ Still, he gave his blessing to
everyone he met, and he took leave of the deities whose temples he
visited. His energy ran out before he reached Silauti, and he had to
be carried in a palanquin. But he did not reach Silauti alive. He died on
the way on the 22nd day of the month of cait. In accordance with his
wish, he was buried in Silauti.

Phālgunanda’s Influence
Who, then, was this Phālgunanda, what were his goals, and what influ-
ence did he have on the political development in east Nepal? If the course
of his life is sized up, a number of contradictions emerge. Following the
initiatory phase of childhood, in which he had experiences typical of
shamans, he came into contact with Britain’s colonial rule and spent
many years in its army. In the end, it was his experience of living through
the World War in Europe that left that period’s most basic imprint on
him, leading him to choose the path of an ascetic. One might venture
to say, therefore, that his encounter with ‘modernity’ in its globalised
form marked an important milestone in his life. The life of a Gurkha
mercenary and the pan-Nepalese culture it represented itself stood in
contrast to the localism of a Limbu farmer. But the experience of the
62 õ Martin Gaenszle

first modern ‘high tech’ war must have been a culture shock of altogether
different proportions. Phālgunanda did return to his cultural roots, but
he did not become a simple shaman; rather, he created a kind of syn-
thesis: he reached back to his cultural traditions, but at the same time
he tried to fit them into a new, wider, universalistic frame. The ascetic
traditions of Hinduism, and in particular the civilising symbolism of
its script, provided a suitable medium for this. Phālgunanda then was a
literate shaman and a reforming ascetic. He was for recreating tradition,
but he used the form the past had hallowed.
During his lifetime, it seems, Phālgunanda was active principally as
a religious leader who undertook pilgrimages within his tribal region
(Limbuwan), where he was universally respected and honoured, and
thus became an icon of ethnic integration. However, this ethnic facet of
his activities appears in the light of the above to have been of secondary
importance. Phālgunanda was not a radical ethnic activist, or even a
separatist (as he was accused of being during his lifetime), but rather
a moderate reformer. Whenever he sought to advance the interests of
his fellow tribesmen, he did so with a simultaneous appeal that they
re-invigorate their own traditions. He evidently viewed the Limbus’
subaltern status as, at least to a certain extent, the result of their own short-
comings. But in striving to create a new religion that combined tribal
(shamanic) elements with Hindu ones, he gave birth to the vision of a
renascent Limbu society that would regain its former political power.
The ‘discovery’ of the Kiranti script proved that the Limbus at one time
possessed a great culture, which had merely sunk into oblivion.
Still, it may seem astonishing that an ascetic like Phālgunanda, who
took a stand against the consumption of alcohol and meat among the
Limbus, for whom beer and blood offerings were a traditionally fixed
feature of religion, should have had such success. Here the cultural and
historical context needs to be elucidated in somewhat greater detail.
The ascetic ideal of vegetarianism was no novelty in the Limbu terri-
tory at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was above all in the
southern region of Kirat — that is, in the area centred on Dhankuta,
and in Panchthar and Ilam — that increasing numbers of Kirantis
joined Hindu sects from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards.
For example, there are numerous followers of the Kabirpanth among
the Chintang Rai (Dhankuta). In Panchthar and Ilam, it was prin-
cipally the so-called Josmanis who exercised the greatest influence over
 The Power of Script õ 63

local Kirantis. This is an order in the sant tradition, which traces its roots
to a founder called Harischandra, about whom, however, nothing is
known in detail. In Nepal, according to one genealogy, it was a successor
in the fifth generation called Sasidhar Das who apparently commanded
particularly great authority in the country as a sant (Sharma 1963). He
was a contemporary of Prithvi Narayan Shah from west Nepal — his
birth year is given as 1747 — and eventually became the teacher of
Rana Bahadur Shah, whom he initiated into the order. In the course
of the nineteenth century, a successor of Sasidhar, Gyandil Das (born
around 1821), who himself was a Brahmin, acquired many new follow-
ers (including Rais and Limbus) in east Nepal. During this period, there
was a broad movement of religious renewal under way among the ethnic
groups, and the Josmanis provided them the opportunity to transcend
caste boundaries, which were declared to be irrelevant. This relatively
egalitarian point of view was attractive to many members of the local
elite. Since membership of the sect, among the Josmanis, was frequently
transferred from father to son and daughter,2 many people followed
their father’s religion, so the appeal of this sect spread in successive
generations.
This religious movement must, of course, be seen against the
background of political and historical realities. In the second half of the
nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century, the power base
of the local chieftains (subba and ra¯ı¯) progressively weakened. Once
conditions prevailed under which the Kirantis could convert kipat. land
(that is, communal property) into raika¯r (private property), particu-
larly when they put it up as collateral, many high-caste immigrants,
especially the ones in the business of providing loans, gained control
over the ancestral tribal territory. With this change in the ownership of
farmland, the power of the local chieftains waned, and their privileges
were increasingly usurped by officials at the centre. Even though wide-
ranging political autonomy had been granted to them at the beginning
of the Shah rule, this political elite saw themselves reduced to the status
of underlings during the course of Rana rule. At the same time, land
became ever scarcer after the middle of the nineteenth century because
of the rapid growth in population and the settlement policies of the
state, so tensions arose between the once welcomed immigrants and the
native population. The formerly independent and proud Kirantis felt
politically disempowered and suppressed. They attempted to reclaim
64 õ Martin Gaenszle

their old rights through numerous petitions, for the most part in vain
(Caplan 1970: 57). In the course of events the one-time rulers in the
hills of east Nepal were turned into one of the many ‘alcohol-consuming’
castes (Höfer 2004). Like all Limbus, Phālgunanda wished to prevent
the loss of the kipat. land, but he devoted his efforts principally to keep-
ing land from being mortgaged. The loss of land could be avoided by
a change in lifestyle (such as abstinence from alcohol, costly rituals,
gambling, etc.). Thereby, and more importantly, self-pride could also
be restored.
One consequence of the tight economic situation was that recruit-
ment into the British army as a Gurkha mercenary remained one of
the few (as well as one of the most lucrative) forms of migratory labour
left. The number of mercenaries (drawn almost exclusively from the
Gurungs, Magars, Rais and Limbus) continued to rise after the intro-
duction of a centralised recruiting system in 1886 (Caplan 1995: 35).
For young men from poor families with many children, this was a
tempting opportunity to leave village, earn money, see a bit of the world
and, after serving the government for the stipulated period (nowadays
15 years), end up receiving a modest but lifelong pension. The number
of recruits thus increased enormously, particularly in the years between
the first and second World Wars, and this was accompanied by a con-
siderable ‘cash flow’ into Nepal’s hill regions, which had had little
monetary resource. This led to the creation of a new type of elite (Höfer
1978), who brought not only capital and an improved standard of liv-
ing into the villages, but also a well-defined sense of national identity
from their experience in the Gurkha regiments. Pride in a common
Nepali language, a common history and a unified state often arose for
the first time in a foreign setting. These new elites frequently came from
formerly powerful families, but not necessarily so; many poor families
too managed to climb the social ladder.
The period in which Phālgunanda was active, then, was a time
of social tensions and socioeconomic change. On the one hand, the
Hindu kingdom consolidated itself from within its state institutions
and strengthened its political and economic control over the country’s
hill regions. On the other hand, it witnessed upward mobility among
scattered portions of the population — individual instances of prosper-
ity, in other words. In such a situation, it is not surprising that sections
of the elite ruled by emulating the dominant ideology. As early variants
 The Power of Script õ 65

of the Hinduisation thesis assert, certain Brahmanical Hindu values

were adopted by persons and groups of relatively low-caste origin in
order to attest to their newly acquired status. Purity rules were strictly
adhered to, diets were changed, marital practices were reformed, and
ritual behaviour was modified in order to meet the criteria of their new
status (see Höfer 1979; Fisher 2001: 197 ff.). What is striking in our
case, however, is that the religion of the ruling elite was not simply
‘emulated’, that is, copied, but rather that it was at the same time altered
and recreated.
Phālgunanda’s form of Hinduisation rests both upon appropriat-
ing the dominant symbolism and upon fundamentally reshaping it by
giving it an ethnic twist. Phālgunanda prayed to his deities in his mother
tongue, and constantly spoke out in favour of using this language in
religious practices. Of course, he spoke Nepali too, and it is difficult
to say exactly what tilt there was in the relationship between the two
languages. In any case, with the discovery and dissemination of the
Kiranti script, he became a missionary of his own reformed — and
nevertheless ethnic — religion. Such an activity was not wholly unheard
of, there being parallels with other persons (such as Chemjong). Still,
Phālgunanda had enough authority at this point to make the spread
of the language effective. In one way he undermined the dominance of
Nepali as the national language and set in motion a day-to-day resistance
of sorts (Scott 1985). The prestige-laden symbols of the Hindu religion
were adopted, but as the knowledge of ethnic traditions was penned
down in the Kiranti script, the Sanskritic tradition was being contested,
and Brahminical superiority was being bested with its own weapons.
That Phālgunanda’s popularity particularly owed to his affluent
patrons is manifest in his success in collecting money for temples. A
total of six temples were built between 1929 and 1942; others followed
subsequently (Gurung and Dahal 1990: 23). The costs of maintain-
ing these temples included the living costs of priests and the costs of
performing rituals. It is possible that some social pressure was exerted
on the affluent elite to donate money, resulting in tensions (see above).
In any case, there were enough moneyed persons, and many ex-Gurkhas
(and persons in power, all the way up to the elite in Kathmandu), who
supported these religious practices. One could then hardly talk of an
upwardly mobile middle class, but in the following decades this is
66 õ Martin Gaenszle

precisely what emerged. To this day, Phālgunanda is honoured by many

educated and relatively well-to-do urban Kirantis.
Following the downfall of the Rana regime in 1951, a phase of general
politicisation set in east Nepal. Various political parties established their
presence in the region. The Nepali Congress Party, whose co-founder
B. P. Koirala had his base of support in the nearby Biratnagar, was par-
ticularly successful. During the 1959 elections it won all the eight seats
in east Nepal (Whelpton 2005: 94). We do not know whether there
was a direct link between this triumph and Phālgunanda’s adherents
(the fact that the Congress party was for scrapping the kipat. system
raises doubts), but in any event, this election result was an indication
not only of an efficient mobilisation of voters but, more importantly,
of a general feeling of heading in a new direction among a popula-
tion that had long been disempowered and now was ‘awakening’. The
Congress party represented, for all its heterogeneity, the largest force of
local resistance. Their armed units (Mukti Sena) were very successful in
the last phase of the battle against the Rana regime in east Nepal and
enjoyed mass support.3 Narad Muni Thulung, for example, a Rai who
early on had contact with the Koiralas and later became a minister in the
first post-Rana government, began his career as a Congress leader. He
exercised great influence over the region from his base in Bhojpur, but
later shifted his allegiance to the Nepal National Party of M. P. Koirala
(Koirala 2001; Halvai 2003). He was one of the first Nepalese ever to
run a radio station of his own (in Bhojpur). There is no indication that
Phālgunanda would have supported the armed conflict at the beginning
of the 1950s, but it can be taken for granted that many of his adherents
turned to the Congress party, particularly during the period when they
came into power in the 1950s.
By then, nevertheless, in the period of general politicisation that set in
shortly after his death in 1949, Phālgunanda seems to have faded from
the people’s memory. Now was the time, too, when the Communists,
from their base in Bengal, and strengthened by the Naxalite movement
in the 1960s, began gathering influence in east Nepal as well. The
political climate became radicalised, and an ever increasing number of
people demanded an independent Kiranti state. To a certain extent, one
could say that the seeds of ethnic consciousness that Phālgunanda had
been instrumental in helping sow were now sprouting, if not necessarily
 The Power of Script õ 67

as he would have hoped. In the period of the Panchayat regime, even

when ethnic aspirations were again suppressed, the undercurrents of
ethnic resistance continued to flow. This ethnic revival found a fer-
tile soil in the neighbouring Sikkim, where many Rais and Limbus live
(even — and all the more — after 1975, when Sikkim became a state
within India). Thus, not a few Kirantis joined such radical groups as
the Mongol National Organisation after 1990 (Krämer 1996; Hangen
2001: 26–28).
As an advocate of non-violence, Phālgunanda would probably
not have been happy about this development. The religious reform
movement that he had begun failed to gain any mass support in the
context of such sweeping politicisation. His activity, accordingly, has
been described as a failure (Jones and Jones 1976). But is this really the
case? Has Phālgunanda’s influence truly evaporated?

Phālgunanda’s Successors
When Phālgunanda died, he left behind a large number of faithful
disciples, including Ranadhoj Nembang, Jas Bahadur Phaudaraj and
Baijanath Tumbapho.4 One of the more widely recognised ones was
the above mentioned Badrinanda Tumbapho, who proved his worth
principally by producing and distributing Kiranti publications. He
survived his guru by only a few years. A number of lesser known disciples,
though, were still alive in the last decade of the previous century, some
of whom, basking in their old age, were interviewed by Chandra Kumar
Serma (1997). Many of these former fellow wayfarers had returned to a
sedentary mode of existence and now retained only the memories of the
life of a wandering ascetic.
Phālgunanda’s disciples kept the tradition alive; the rituals continued
to be performed at the temples, and the community of Satyahangma
adherents survived, if on a more modest scale. Since Phālgunanda had
prophesied his rebirth shortly before his death, it was not surprising that
a disciple soon claimed this status. Shyam Bahadur Lingden, otherwise
known as Atmananda, a great grandson (in direct patrilineal descent)
of Phālgunanda’s elder brother, Laj Harka Lingden, and thus a fellow
clansman of the Mahaguru, is today revered by many in the region as
the legitimate reincarnation. He still stays at a temple in Larumba and
is regarded far and wide as the Kirantis’ most important religious leader.
On 18 January 2006, in fact, King Gyanendra paid him a visit and lit a
68 õ Martin Gaenszle

sacred fire (the event is said to have been arranged by Prapannacharya, a

member of the Rajparishad).
Who is Atmananda Lingden? Serma’s description of his life displays
numerous parallels with Phālgunanda’s life (ibid.). Shyam Bahadur
Lingden was born in 1954 (2011 Vikram Samvat) not far from the cen-
tre of Phālgunanda’s activities, in Ibhang (Ilam district). He too had a
difficult childhood. As a baby, he refused his mother’s milk because,
according to a popular account, she was in the habit of consuming meat
and alcohol. Thus, he was raised on cow’s milk. Early on, his mother,
Chandramaya, left her husband to marry another man, so the child was
left practically motherless. The child quickly stood out by its behaviour:
like Phālgunanda, he was quiet, serious and introspective. In school
too, he was reserved and learnt without having to exert himself much.
Finally, at the age of around seven, he was ‘recognised’ as Phālgunanda’s
reincarnation by Badrinanda and his grandmother Yogamaya, both
of whom were followers of Phālgunanda. From them he received the
initiation (dı¯ks.a¯) and an introduction to the religious practice. Since
the boy was regarded as having spiritual leanings, he was called ‘Atme’,
and from this was derived the name Atmananda. Whereas Phālgunanda
was revered as Mahaguru, Atmananda is called Dharmaguru. In spite
of the similarities in their lives, the prophecy states that each of them is
assigned a different path to follow. The Mahaguru trod the ‘maternal’
path of renunciation (ma¯ta¯rūpı¯ brahmaca¯rya); the Dharmaguru takes
the ‘paternal’ path of worldliness ( pita¯rūpı¯ sa¯m.sa¯rik jı¯van). This is the
reason why Atmananda, after many years of ascetic practice in the caves
and at other sites associated with his predecessor, eventually married
in 1975 and afterwards (in the 1990s) settled down in Larumba, Ilam
district. Today, he has five sons and six daughters.
Atmananda’s following has continuously grown in recent years. As
the successor of Phālgunanda, the recognised leader of the Kirantis, he
draws upon the latter’s revived popularity. On 10 November 2000, the
116th birth anniversary of the Mahaguru, a huge gathering was held
in the Birendra International Conference Hall in Kathmandu, billed as
the ‘First International Conference on the Kiranti Religion.’ With over
a thousand participants and numerous renowned speakers (including
the litterateur Bairagi Kahila and the linguists Novel Kishor Rai and
Ballabh Mani Dahal), it was indeed one of the largest events of its kind.
Atmananda acted as the host and the main figurehead of the movement.
 The Power of Script õ 69

Beforehand he had presided over an elaborate ritual in Hattiban, at the

most important Limbu manghim (temple) in Kathmandu. The chief
guest of the conference was Girija Prasad Koirala (the then Prime
Minister), who showed his respect for Atmananda by offering him a
flower garland. Today, it looks as if the whole thing was a giant publicity
stunt to allow the modern, detribalised urban middle-class Kirantis to
display their new sense of self-esteem.
Interestingly, there is another Kiranti who claims to be the reincarna-
tion of Phālgunanda. He is not a Limbu, though, but a Bantawa Rai from
Mainamaini (Udayapur district). Known bythe name of Omnanda, he
was born in 1979 as the son of Jaya Bahadur and Pancheswari Hangcalim
in modest surroundings. His followers recount how his mother saw signs
during her pregnancy that pointed to the unusual nature of her child:
she saw a walking stick and fire tongs, both symbols of a wandering
ascetic. A few days after his birth, his body was seen to tremble, a sign
of possession. When its mother ate pork, the baby became ill. In his
seventh year, the boy disappeared for many months into the forest, and
was even declared officially dead. It was when a shaman was performing
death rituals, his drum burst, he suddenly reappeared without a scratch
on his body. All of these are episodes typical of hagiographical accounts
of shamanic ascetics. As a young man, Omnanda travelled through the
region around Ravi, where Phālgunanda had been active. He behaved
like the Mahaguru, bestowing his blessings upon people the way the latter
did. When he unearthed a trident that Phālgunanda had supposedly
buried, this was taken by his followers as definitive proof that he was the
true reincarnation. Omnanda is a dazzling figure in comparison with
Atmananda, not only because of his young age and idiosyncratic garb
(including a star-studded crown), but also because he has a pronounced
proclivity for long-distance travel. In 2005, for example, he paid an
extended visit to the United States. Omnanda’s message is very similar
to that of Phālgunanda and Atmananda: lead a pure sincere life and do
not deny your Kiranti identity.
Besides these reincarnations, there was at least one other ‘successor’,
if the term is taken in a loose sense. Jyotinanda’s life, as described in
an authoritative hagiography (Rai 2003), in many points is similar to
those that have just been described. Nanda Bahadur Rai was born in
1957 in Jalkeni (Ilam district) and grew up in modest surroundings. He
too, early on, showed signs of being an unusual person, one predestined
70 õ Martin Gaenszle

for a religious life. Like Atmananda and Omnanda, he followed in the

footsteps of the master. In his overall conduct, though, he is somewhat
more modest: for all the disciples he has, he takes little interest in material
things. Nor does he claim to be Phālgunanda’s reincarnation. Still, more
than his ‘competitors’, he is pursuing the goal of socially reforming the
hallowed cultural practices. During the Panchayat period he was even
imprisoned for a few days on the charge of being a Communist, as
Phālgunanda once was, though, it was all a result of misunderstanding.
More often than not, he was viewed as a separatist since he too called for
the preservation of his mother tongue. Like Phālgunanda, Jyotinanda
‘discovered’ a distinctive script on one of his pilgrimages, but it failed
to catch on. Jyotinanda died at the end of 1984, according to local
accounts, from an inflammation of the lungs (Rai 2003: 89).
These developments show, then, that the movement led by
Phālgunanda is far from having dwindled away. Rather, it must be
said that it has got divided along different lines of succession, with the
following as a whole having become progressively larger. What is strik-
ing is that ethnic differences have evidently played an important role
in determining the succession. At the beginning, the Limbus were able
to claim the leadership role for themselves as a matter of course, but
then the successors from the Rai ethnic group weighed in, asserting
that the continuation of Phālgunanda’s legacy, and along with it the
right to represent Kirantis, did not fall to the Limbus alone. The religious
tradition has thus increasingly taken on ethnic overtones.

Conclusion: Religious Ethnicity

These developments show that the ethnic consciousness of the Kirantis,
at least that of the modern urban elite, bears the heavy imprint of reli-
gious leaders who follow Phālgunanda’s footsteps. Phālgunanda can
thus be regarded as a model that caters to a widespread need in the
present-day population of Rais and Limbus. Let us summarise, then,
what characterises this model.
What sets Phālgunanda apart is the link he forged between ethnic
aspirations and reform ideals on the basis of a religious movement. For
both him and his ‘reincarnations’ or ‘successors’, the strengthening of the
Kiranti identity within the framework of its own language and its own
deities and rituals is the heart of their struggle. People do, though, take
themselves to be reformers of the tribal culture; no one wishes simply to
 The Power of Script õ 71

return to the old tradition; rather, they want to renew it fundamentally.

This endeavour is directed particularly against certain cultural practices
that are viewed as ‘impure’ (alcohol, meat), ‘unethical’ (marriages by
capture, dowries) and often nowadays as ‘backward’ (animal sacrifices,
oral tradition). In the face of these, reformers come out in favour of
learning scripts (a symbol of ‘high religions’), not only for the recitation
of religious texts but also for private reading and writing. In this sense,
they are clearly modernisers who campaign for education and demand
equal rights for girls and boys. It is this mixture of ethnic and language-
based activism, self-assertion, reformism and modernism that makes
these religious leaders interesting for today’s middle class. That these
leaders are simultaneously active politically seems almost to be an un-
wanted side effect.
Indeed a look at political proclivities shows that these have under-
gone drastic change in the past decades. Whereas during Phālgunanda’s
time the Kiranti movement he backed was critical of the state and had
pronounced emancipatory goals, his present-day successors and their
adherents tend to incline towards the conservative-to-openly-royalist
(ex-king Gyanendra’s visit to Atmananda being but one example).
Here, in my opinion, a general polarisation and split within the ethnic
movement into various factions can be observed, particularly in the
rivalry between the Limbus and the Rais over the question of succession.
Today, it is increasingly debated (for example, also in numerous internet
discussion groups) whether there is one common Kiranti religion and
whether the new Kiranti religion established by Phālgunanda can be
claimed only by the Limbu, not by the Rai.
Further, there is the question about the political leanings in the pre-
sent context. Some elements of the Kiranti movement are demanding
greater autonomy and political rights from the state, while others
are seen to have more or less broadly conformed to the traditionalist
ideologies of monarchism and Hinduism. This latter type of religiously
inspired ethnicity poses as an alternative to the primarily emancipatory
ethnicity dominant among most ethnic organisations. In the radicalised
political situation of recent years (Maoism and republicanism versus the
monarchy), this conservative alternative has been able to generate fresh
momentum and has led to fission.
Still, if one can legitimately talk in terms of conformity, this is by no
means a passive process. Rather, it has become clear that Phālgunanda
72 õ Martin Gaenszle

and his successors have been masters in the art of synthesis, as is par-
ticularly evident in the use of a distinct script. What they are engaged in
is not simple emulation, something along the lines of the Sanskritisation
hypothesis, but rather a creative process, which allows new rival forms
of religion to emerge (Fisher 2001: 201 ff.). These may appear to be
internally inconsistent and ‘syncretic’, but which religion is not? As part
of a continuing political process, this new ‘invented’ religion always
has been undergoing constant change which will bring forth still other
modalities.

m
Notes
∗ This essay was published in German as ‘Schrift und Identität: Phālgunanda
und die Anfänge der Kiranti-Sprachbewegung’, in Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka and
Christian Büschges (eds), Die Ethnisierung des Politischen. Identitätspolitiken in
Lateinamerika, Asien und den USA, pp. 284–307, Frankfurt: Campus, 2007.
I am grateful to the editors, Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka and Christian Büschges,
for giving their consent, and for arranging the publisher’s consent, to this
publication in English. I wish to thank Philip Pierce for doing the translation.
1. In the written tradition, this contest is won by the lama (Mumford 1989: 51ff.),
but in oral traditions it is the shaman who is seen as stronger.
2. Unlike among the Kabirpanthis, for whom the transfer was hereditary, here it
was necessary to take a clear decision to enter the order, with a corresponding
initiation being performed.
3. The events are described as a ‘Limbu uprising’ (see Hachhethu 2002: 31).
4. These names are taken from Subba (1995: 34).

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