Yakkha

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The indigenous Yakkha (identical with its Kirat family: Limbu, Rai and Sunuwar of the Mongolian physiognomy) is one of the progenesis of Nepal's prehistoric Kirat dynasty of around 100 BC. Today, the Yakkha motherland is considered a patch among the historic Kirat region (i.e., east of the capital Kathmandu valley). It is claimed that the ethnonym "Yakkha" as per the conqueror Aryan's Sanskrit grammar had been spelled in the Aryan-Hindu mythologies as "Yaksa-sh" (like Bhisu-shu for an ascetic "Bhikchu" of the Buddhist holy scripts). Although the legendary Yaksa-sh, by the corrupt name of Yakkha and Kirats are being hailed in the Hindu holy scripts Vedas and the ancient Sanskrit literature, the Yakkha is eternally firm with its own clanonym, "The Yakkha".

The current national census of Nepal 2001 says that there are 17,003 Yakkhas in the country, of which 81.43% were Kirats, 14.17% were Hindus and 1.04% were Buddhists.

[edit] References

• Andrew J. Russell, Writing Traveling Cultures: Travel and Ethnography Amongst the Yakkha of East Nepal, Ethnos, 72(3), 361-382, 2007.
• Andrew J. Russell, Traditions in Transition: Sanskritization and Yakkhafication in East Nepal, History and Anthropology, 15(3), 251-261, 2004.
• Andrew J. Russell, The Missing and the Met: Routing Clifford Amongst the Yakha in Nepal and NE India, Journeys, 1, 86-113, 2000.
• Andrew J. Russell, Identity Management and Cultural Change: Religion and Politics Amongst the Yakha. In Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom: The Politics of Culture in Contemporary Nepal, D. Gellner, J. Pfaff-Czarnecka, J. Whelpton (eds.) Harwood Publishers, Reading, UK, pp. 325-350, 1997.
• Durga Hang Yakkha, Kirat Yakkha Ko Itihas Ek Chhalphal, 2002 (Discussion on the history of the Kirat Yakkha, a book in Nepali language).
• Tanka B. Subba, Politics of Culture: A Study of Three Kirata Communities in the Eastern Himalayas, Orient Longman, Hyderabad, India, 1999.