Antiquity language stone inscription dated 594 at
Gomārhi, central Bhaktapur is the oldest one found in the city. The folklore of the
Kathmandu Valley states that the entire valley and as such Bhaktapur itself was once an enormous lake. Geological surveys conducted by Swiss geologist
Toni Hagen proved that the
Kathmandu Valley was in fact a lake which formed when the
Lower Himalayan Range was being created due to the collision between the
Indian and
Eurasian plate. The lake water started eroding the
limestone hills of
Chobhar and starting from around thirty thousand years ago, the lake started to drain. Plain lands appeared in the
valley and between 30,000 and 15,000 years, most of the valley was drained. It is said that the
Rajkulo canals, which supplies water in
hitis were built and managed by Tulā Rāni, a mythical queen who is believed to have lived in Bhaktapur during the Licchavi dynasty.
Foundation In the 14th century
Gopal Raj Vamshavali, Ananda Deva, who ruled
Nepal Mandala from 1146 to 1167 is credited to have established the city of Bhaktapur. Since there were already settlements in Bhaktapur like
Mākhopring and M
ākhoduluṃ during the
Licchavi dynasty, it was more likely that Ananda Deva unified these smaller settlements into a single unit. Ananda Deva also established a royal court named
Tripura Rājkula in the central part of Bhaktapur and declared it as the new capital of
Nepal. This arrangement of the shrines of mother goddess is used to conceptualize the entire town as a sacred
Mandala.
Capital city of Nepal As Bhaktapur became the seat of the government, it also became the target for numerous foreign invasions. The main reasons for these attacks was the internal division among the royal family of
Nepal. Soon after Ananda Deva's death, a new royal house emerged from within. Believed to have been started by
Ari Malla, they used Malla as their surname replacing their ancestral surname, Deva. When the conflictions between both houses worsened, the House of Tripura sought help from
Tirhut while the House of Yuthunimam sought help from
Khasa Kingdom. Thus, both of these kingdoms started interfering in the internal politics of
Nepal. In the 1310s, the monarch Rudra Malla in order to improve
Nepal Mandal's relation with Tirhut married off his sister Devaladevi to the Tirhut king,
Harisimhadeva. After the marriage, the relation between the two kingdoms smoothed and
Tirhut's attack on
Nepal ceased. In July 1326, just six months after the arrival of Devaldevi, her brother Rudra Malla died. Nayakdevi, Rudra Malla's daughter became the new ruler of Nepal Mandala under the
regency of her grandmother Padma Lakshmi. According to the
Gopal Raj Vamshavali, Bhaktapur was ransacked and set on fire by the invaders which lasted for seven days and the populace were either killed or escaped in the mountains. Some historians cite this invasion as the reason for the disappearance of monuments from the
Licchavi and the early
Malla dynasty. After the invasion, which destroyed much of the city, Bhaktapur was entirely rebuilt under Devaldevi, who like Ananda Deva, did so on the basis of
Sanskrit treatises in architecture. The layout of the old part of the city has remained mostly the same since then. In September 1354, a nine year old
Jayasthiti, a
Danwar noble from
Mithila was brought into Bhaktapur and was eventually married to Rajalladevi Malla in January 1355. After Devaladevi died in 1366, Rajalladevi and her king consort Jayasthiti Malla took control of
Nepal Mandala and under their reign Nepal experienced a period of stability and cultural as well as economic growth. in the 15th century was destroyed in the
1934 earthquake. His grandson,
Yakshya Malla was the last king of a unified
Nepal Mandala who ruled from Bhaktapur from 1428 to 1481. Yaksha Malla had numerous wives and concubines including Sarupādevī, Karpuradevī, Udayādevī, Jīvalakṣmī, Jayatanā, Kṛtilakṣmī, Sarasvatidevī (among which Sarupādevī and Karpuradevī were the most influential) and therefore numerous issue. He is also known to have fortified his capital, Bhaktapur with moats, defensive walls and eight city gates which correspond with the shrines of the
Eight Matrikas.
Ganga Devi, the queen consort of
Vishva Malla seized control of the kingdom and started a joint rule with her two sons
Trailokya and Tribhuvan Malla. Her reign saw numerous cultural changes in the form of festivals as she is credited to have improved the numerous festivals celebrated within the kingdom. The locals of Bhaktapur credit her as the builder of many of the
hitis and public rest houses within Bhaktapur as well as numerous
Narayana temples of the city but no any inscriptional evidence of it has been found. at the
royal palace which depicts
Bhupatindra Malla and his queen
Vishva Lakshmi as a divine couple.
Bhupatindra Malla reigned from 1696 to 1722 and his reign is considered the cultural highpoint of Bhaktapur. Ganga Devi's death has not been properly studied yet. It is possible that she died in 1602 as after 1602, her eldest son
Trailokya Malla is the only one addressed as the king in inscriptions and legal documents.
Jagajjyoti Malla is especially remembered for his contributions in
Maithili literature. Naresha Malla proved to be a weak king and it was during his reign that
Pratap Malla, the king of
Kantipur, in his attempt to unify the
Kathmandu Valley, attacked Bhaktapur. By 1660, the coalition conquered all the hamlets and villages, north of Bhaktapur and managed to reach the northern city gate.
Jagat Prakasha Malla released decree cancelling the festival that year, a first time where the festival was cancelled. He is fondly remembered for the construction of a canal which brought water to the city from the hills of
Nagarkot. His son
Ranajit Malla was the last ruler of the
Kingdom of Bhaktapur and is remembered today for his musical contributions and talents. The
Newar language devotional songs he wrote are still sung in Bhaktapur today. In November 1769, Bhaktapur was
attacked and after suffering a heavy loss, the state eventually surrendered to the expanding Gorkha kingdom, which would become the future
Kingdom of Nepal. Bhaktapur was visited by Colonel Kirkpatrick of
East India Company in 1792 and in his book described the city as being in a better state than
Kathmandu or
Lalitpur. Bhaktapur played a small role during the rise of
Jung Bahadur Rana as its former palace was where King
Rajendra Bikram Shah was imprisoned in 1847. After the establishment of the
Rana dynasty in 1846, Rana's brother
Dhir Shumsher Rana was appointed as the mayor of the city.
Dhir Shumsher oversaw the demolition of many of the old palaces of Bhaktapur and its replacement with British style inspired buildings.|left The great earthquake of
1833 and
1934 devastated most of the city including the palace and temples. In the earthquake of
1833 especially, Bhaktapur suffered the most damage in the
Kathmandu Valley. Out of 500 total casualties of the earthquake, at least 200 of them were in Bhaktapur. Around 25% to 70% of the town suffered major destruction, including at least 2,000 homes and six to eight temples. When the 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck in 1934, Bhaktapur was one of the most affected towns of Nepal. Around 40-100% of residential buildings were directly affected while 6224 buildings were completely destroyed by the earthquake. Around 177 heritages were completely destroyed during the earthquake. The economy of Bhaktapur, which had already been struggling after losing the flow of Tibetan traders, was acceleratedly aggravated by the earthquakes of
1833 and
1934. The 1934 earthquake also damaged the physical infrastructure of the town and most of the inhabitants were unable to rebuild their houses properly. The earthquake permanently damaged the
Rajkulo canals that had been providing fresh water to the city since the time of the
Mallas. Due to the malaise economy and cash-strapped budget, Bhaktapur was unable to revamp these broken canals, as a result, fresh water became scarce in the city.. The sanitation level of Bhaktapur became severely low and poverty and diseases became rampant.
20th century on the far right and the
Langtang mountains in the background.In the 1950s, when the tyrannical
Rana dynasty ended and Nepal was open up to the outside world,
Kathmandu and the other cities around it like
Patan saw a considerable rise in urbanization and population. However, Bhaktapur was farther away from the capital and was left out from the development that occurred in the other cities of the
Kathmandu Valley. Bhaktapur was also greatly isolated and ignored by the central powers. When a new
highway was built, it completely bypassed the city and instead ran through the outskirts. Consequently, Bhaktapur was the poorest city of Nepal in the 20th century. ==Demographics==