REFERENCE

Glossary

Nepali, Sanskrit and specialist terms that appear across the site without always being defined where they're used — in ruler blurbs, district histories, battle accounts, and the Society page's own caste and ethnicity vocabulary. One page, so you don't have to guess or leave to look it up.

Places & titles

Rajya: Sanskrit/Nepali for "kingdom" or "state" — the word behind "Baise Rajya" (the Twenty-Two States), "Chaubise Rajya" (the Twenty-Four States), and this site's own name.
Gadhi: A hill fort. Many historic battle sites carry the suffix — Sindhuli Gadhi, Hariharpurgadhi, Jit Gadhi — since a gadhi was usually both a military position and the seat of local administration.
Durbar: A royal palace or court. "Durbar Square" is the plaza in front of one — Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur each kept their own, all three now UNESCO-listed.
Kaji: A senior minister or noble title in the Gorkhali and early Shah state, roughly equivalent to a chief counselor — Kalu Pande, Prithvi Narayan Shah's chief kaji, is the best-known example on this site.

Chronology & sources

Vamshavali: Also spelled Bansavali — a traditional genealogical chronicle, the source for Nepal's early king-lists before dated inscriptions begin. Generally treated as less reliable than inscriptional evidence, and flagged as such wherever this site relies on one.
Sambat: An era or calendar system. Nepal Sambat, inaugurated in 879 CE, is one of several calendars used historically in the Kathmandu Valley, alongside the Vikram Sambat still used officially in Nepal today.

Caste & ethnicity

Jaat: Nepali for a caste or sub-caste group — the word behind "chaar jaat chhattis jaat," the traditional idiom in the Society page's title.
Varna: The four-tier classical Hindu caste model — Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra — as historically mapped onto hill Hindu Nepali society.
Khas: An Indo-Aryan hill people native to Nepal’s far west, whose language became modern Nepali. Not originally organized by Hindu caste.
Khas Arya: The modern constitutional category grouping Bahun, Chhetri, Thakuri and Sanyasi (Dashnami) citizens — a legal echo of the older Khas ethnonym.
Bahun: Hill Brahmin caste — the priestly/scholarly tier in the varna model, and part of the Khas Arya category.
Chhetri: Hill Kshatriya caste — the ruling/warrior tier, and Nepal’s single largest caste group (16.45% of the 2021 census).
Thakuri: A Chhetri sub-group; the stratum from which Nepal’s ruling Shah and Rana dynasties drew their own identity.
Muluki Ain: Nepal’s first written national legal code, promulgated in 1854 by Jung Bahadur Rana, which formalized a nationwide caste hierarchy.
Tagadhari: "Wearers of the sacred thread" — the Muluki Ain’s highest tier: hill and Newar Brahmins, Thakuri, Chhetri, and Tarai Brahmins.
Matwali: "Alcohol-drinkers" — the Muluki Ain’s term for groups outside the Hindu ritual hierarchy, split into a protected ("Namasinya") and an enslavable ("Masinya") tier.
Birta: Tax-exempt land grants historically awarded, disproportionately, to Bahun, Chhetri and Thakuri courtiers and officials.
Janajati: "Indigenous nationalities" — ethnic communities outside the Hindu caste hierarchy, roughly a third of the population, organized since 1990 under NEFIN.
Adivasi: "Indigenous" — commonly paired with Janajati (as "Adivasi Janajati") in Nepal’s constitution and inclusion policy.
Madhesi: Communities of the Tarai plains, home to roughly half of Nepal’s population but long under-represented in a state centered on the hill capital.
Dalit: Communities historically placed in the Muluki Ain’s lowest, "untouchable" tier — today a legally protected category under anti-discrimination law.
NEFIN: Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities — the umbrella organization for the Janajati movement, founded 1991 (as NEFEN), renamed 2003.