Nepal Samvat and Mhapuja are not the same

The Mha Puja celebrated by the Newar community falls on the day of the Kartik Shukla Pratipada. The new year of the Nepal Sambat begins on this day. As it is the original Sambat of Nepal and a community that has been holding the sign of ancient Nepal, the Newars are in favor of the Nepal Sambat. Since Mha Puja is performed on the day that the new Nepal Sambat begins, some people are confused that these two are the same or that the new year is celebrated because of Mha Puja. However, when viewed in the light of history and culture, it seems that these two are different issues.

It seems that the practice of Mha Puja began about five hundred years before the Nepal Sambat began. This makes it clear that these two are not the same. In only a few original Sambats of Nepal, Mandev Sambat and Anshuvarma Sambat were in practice before Nepal Sambat. These Sambats are not different systems but belong to the same tradition. The practice of the Sambat began with one name and at a certain time, the old calculation was abandoned and a new name was given. Since the calculation method of the Sambat prevalent before Nepal Sambat was the same and Nepal Sambat is its continuation, one may wonder whether Mha Puja is related to the previous Sambats. However, no historical source material can be found in this regard.

History and culture are separate subjects. The establishment and practice of Sambat are matters of history. Culture, on the other hand, does not have a clear beginning and end like history. Many factors have played a role in its formation and it takes a definite form over a long period of time. It is also changeable.

Some writers have identified and identified Mha Puja as ‘Atmapuja’. Writers of this class are atmanists and are in favor of the existence of the soul. The meaning of the soul they say is immortal and of the form of consciousness, as explained in Brahmanical literature such as the Vedas and Upanishads. The explanation of worshiping the soul of the form of consciousness can be questioned, why is Mha Puja not practiced in a community that talks a lot about the soul and the Supreme Soul, but only in a community that has little concern with such issues? The Newar community that celebrates Mha Puja does not have a separate word for the word ‘soul’ in its language. More importantly, the word ‘mha’ does not mean the soul but simply means the body or the flesh. In this sense, Mha Puja is a physical matter, not a spiritual one.

Materialists make a philosophy of life by keeping the body at the center. Whereas those who practice meditation consider the body to be transient and emphasize spiritual practice. Gautam Buddha also tortured his body by not eating during his practice. Later, he started taking food thinking about how to practice without a body. Transientism, which shows the reality that everything is born and destroyed simultaneously, and impermanence, which believes that nothing is permanent, are the original identities of Gautam Buddha. The Buddha never preached to torment the body and to be attached to the soul. Buddha made the body a medium of spiritual practice as a middle path between two opposing ideologies that consider the body to be high and low.

However, by raising this context, the author does not mean that Mha Puja began on the basis of Buddha's beliefs. There is no culture related to Mha Puja in the context of Gautam Buddha and his contemporary Vardhman Mahavira. The learned disciples who followed these two are also not found to have developed anything related to Mha Puja. Similarly, the lineages and families of the communities that came to blend into the Newar community at different times also have no connection with Mha Puja. There is no mention of Mha Puja anywhere in the literature of the Vedic, Sanatan or Brahmin communities.

In this situation, it can be said that Mha Puja was practiced in different forms even before the entry of the two religious communities, Hindu and Buddhist, in the Kathmandu Valley, and that culture is being modified and continued. Since some cultures and rituals that have nothing to do with both Hindu and Buddhist religions are originally practiced in the Newar society of the valley and their relationship is seen with the history of the very Far East, our vision should also reach this direction.

The beginning of Nepal Sambat
There is a popular story about the beginning of Nepal Sambat that sand turned into gold. However, there is no historical basis in that story. According to the story, the king of Bhaktapur sent sand to Kantipur on the advice of an astrologer. At that time, Kantipur was a separate kingdom. The sand brought from there turned into gold and the kingdom was freed from debt. However, the reality is that Kantipur was not a separate kingdom until the beginning of Nepal Sambat, and its rule was from Bhaktapur. A separate Kantipur kingdom was established much later by Ratna Malla (reigned 1482–1520 CE), son of Yaksha Malla.

The beginning of a new Sambat is not a common thing, such things happen only after major changes. According to Silvan Levi, who studied Nepal, at that time Nepal was under the rule of Tibet and the new Sambat was started in the joy of being freed from it, later its name remained Nepal Sambat. Nepali historians should think about and study more about Levi's opinion.

Although Nepal has had relations with Tibet since ancient times, the flight of Lichchhavi King Udayadeva to Tibet, the marriage of Princess Bhrikuti to the Tibetan king, and Narendradev's success in regaining his ancestral throne with the help of the Tibetan army are political relations. The Tibetan army that came to support Narendradev stayed in Nepal and strengthened his power.

There is a story of a Chinese envoy sent to the service of the Indian king Harshavardhana being insulted by the new ruler, Arunashva, before he reached the kingdom. After that insult, the Chinese and Tibetan troops arrested Arunashva and sent him to China via Nepal.