The Kiratis
Recorded history begins with the Kiratis, ancient people who were found habituated here around the 7th or 8th century BC. Although they are the first known rulers of the Kathmandu Valley, and Yalambar (the first of their kings) is mentioned in the Hindu epic the Mahabharata, little more is known about them.
Is was during the Kirati period that buddishim first arrived in the country; indeed it is claimed that during the reign of the seventh of the 28 Kirati kings, Buddha, together with his disciple Ananda, visited the valley and stayed for a time in Patan.
Other accounts of the Kirati period include a 4th century BC description of the Kiratis' sheep-breeding and agricultural activities. Around the 2nd century BC, the great Indian Buddhist emperor Asoka visited Nepal and erected a pillar at the Buddha's birth place at Lumbini, south of Pokhara near the present-day Indian border. Ashoka may have also enlarged the stupas he erected around Patan can still be clearly seen. Ashoka may have also enlarged the stupas at bodhnath shyambhunath. His daughter charumati was said to have founded chabahil, a village on the road between Kathmandu and bodhnath, which has now been swallowed up by the capital. There is a stupa, which is smaller version of the one at Bodnath, and a monastery here that are claimed to date back to Charumati's time in Nepal.
Kirati domination ended around 300 AD but the Rai and Limbu people of eastern Nepal are said to be modern descendants.
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