Note 6 — Chapter I · JOURNEY FROM DARJILING TO TASHILHUNPO.

The country between the Arun and Tambur is called Limbudu by the Nepali natives, and the aboriginal people who have dwelt there from time immemorial are designated by the name of Limbu, though they call themselves by the name of Yakthanga. In the same manner the tribes inhabiting Kiranta, or the regions between Dudkosi and the Arun, are called Kirat, which name is as old as that of the great Hindu deity Mahadeva. The Kirat of the north and the Limbu of the south were known to the ancients by the name of Kirata, on account of their living by hunting and carrying on trade with the natives of the plains in musk, yak-tails, shellac, cardamoms, etc., from the earliest Hindu periods. See also infra, p. 26.

The Tibetans and the Bhutias of Nepal and Sikkim call the Limbus by the name of Tsang, probably on account of their having emigrated from the Tsang province of Tibet. Both tradition and written Limbu works relate that the Limbu people partly emigrated thither (to Limbuan) from Tsang in Thibet and Kashi in the Madhya Desh, and partly sprang from underneath a huge rock in the village of Khedab, to the north-east of Tsanpur. So that the Limbu people were divided into three great tribes, according to their original homes, Tsang, Kashi, and Phedah. The first branch from Tsang spread over Tambur-Khola, Phalung, Mirva Khola itself, Mayiwa, and Yangrub, being designated by the Tibetans as Tsang Monpa, or the Limbus inhabiting the defiles. Those who came from Kashi occupied Chaibisa, Kaikhola, and Tsolkar. Those that sprang from underneath the great rock of Phedah were also called Baiphuta. The name of the place in the middle of which stands the huge slab of rock, measuring a hundred fathoms on either side, was Phedah Pangi-loma, which is evidently a corruption of the name Pheduh Pangi-lungpa, or “the pasture land in Pheduh.” See also infra, p. 26.

The Baiphuta Limbu were the most powerful and numerous; their chief, Baiphuta Han Raja, ruled over Eastern Nepal. All the Limbu tribes, as well as the Kiratas, paid him tribute and military service, in a manner resembling the feudal system of Europe. The power of this family having declined, the third tribe assumed the supremacy, and massacred the adherents of the former rulers. After the fall of the Han dynasty there was anarchy all over Eastern Nepal, until there arose in the Srisobha tribe a mighty man called Marang, who succeeded in reconciling the different tribes, and was elected king over all the aboriginal tribes of Eastern Nepal, the southern portion being ruled by a Newar chief. After the death of the most distinguished of his successors, Mohani Raja, the Limbu tribes again fell into anarchy, and continued in this state for more than a century. At last, probably in the ninth century, appeared the famous Srijanga, the deified hero of the Limbus. The cis-Himalayan Bhutias identify him with an incarnation of Padma Sambhava, and attribute to him the introduction of the art of writing by the invention of an alphabet. Tradition also attributes the introduction of this art to Marang Raja, and its revival to Srijanga.—(S. C. D.) See Gazetteer of Sikkim, pp. 36–38. ↑