138 CHAPTER SIXInscriptions reveal that Buddhist monasteries were present in the valley in
the fifth century C.E.; in the seventh century, I-ching heard reports that the
valley was home both to Hinayana and to Mahayana adherents. Vajrayana later
became predominant at an unknown date and absorbed all other forms of
Buddhism into its fold. From the 1200s to 1768, the Hindu Malia dynasty
controlled the valley and, like many preconquest Hindu dynasties in India,
provided support to Buddhist institutions. Gradually, however, the economic
base for the monasteries began to shrink. This dwindling economic base, to-
gether with the influence of lay Buddhist Tantric adepts, led to a process
whereby the Sangha began to adopt the Hindu model of a married, heredi-
tary priesthood. This process was already under way by the end of the four-
teenth century, when King Jayasthiti Malia (r. 1382-95) established a caste
system for his Buddhist subjects, in which upper-class Buddhist lay people
were classified as the u-dai caste, and married Buddhist priests were divided
into two subcastes: vajriiciirya, descended from Tantric adepts, and siikya-bhik~u,
descended from married Buddhist monks. This adoption of the Hindu pat-
tern apparently took several centuries, for as late as the seventeenth century
the city of Patan boasted more than 20 celibate monasteries in its immediate
vicinity.
In 1768, the Mallas were ousted by the Gurkhas, a militant Hindu clan
descended from Rajasthani refugees. The Gurkhas established their own dy-
nasty, which has lasted to the present, and set about to transform the local
Newari culture. As part of this program, they withdrew support from Bud-
dhist institutions and promoted Hinduism as an element of Nepalese political
identity. This policy formally ended in 1951, when Nepal was opened to the
outside world, but there ate reports that it has died hard. Theravada Buddhism
has been reintroduced from Sri Lanka and Thailand, and the influx of refugees
from Tibet has brought about the establishment of Tibetan monasteries in the
valley. These newly imported forms of Buddhism remain a small minority,
with native Nepalese Buddhism largely impervious to their influence.
As in Hindu practice, the center of Nepalese Buddhism is the act of
homage. This begins in the home, to one's parents and elders, and extends be-
yond the home in acts of homage to priests and deities. Religion is thus less a
matter of beliefs than of proper etiquette in knowing how to show respect to
others on the human and celestial planes. We have already noticed how Va-
jrayana absorbed elements from Saivism, and this tendency has continued in
Nepal. Buddhist and Hindu groups have each found ways of including the
deities of the other in their own pantheons. Hindus regard Sakyamuni as a
form ofVigm, whereas Buddhists see Siva and Vigm as bodhisattvas. Forms
of ritual and worship are also similar, with the care and feeding of Buddhist
icons following the Hindu pattern. This means that the act of homage is some-
what noncommittal, as the same deity may be worshiped in either his/her
Buddhist or Hindu identity. Some members of the priestly castes, secure in
their command of ritual knowledge, declare themselves to be exclusively
Hindu or Buddhist in their allegiance, but most Nepalese are loathe to define
their acts of homage in such an exclusive way. They feel it wiser to stay on