Nepal : The Discovery of the Malla

Tucci, a skilled orientalist, has trekked over the most inaccessible of the Himalayas; his work is a synthesis of scholarly reflection and personal observation on a singularly unknown area of the West. In the district of Jumla, an isolated region of western Nepal, Tucci uncovered ancient inscriptions of the Malla dynasties. Descended from the Khasias of Kashmir, the Malla established an empire the size of Italy which embraced western Nepal and Tibet from the tenth to fourteenth centuries A.D. Tibetan historians had known of the Malla for some time, but it was assumed that the dynasties originated in Tibet. Tucci's discovery indicates that the point of origin was northwestern Nepal.