About Pyuthan

About Pyuthan
Pyuthan Khalanga or Pyuthan is a bazaar town and administrative center of Pyuthan District in the Rapti Zone of central south-western Nepal, approximately 300 kilometres west of the capital of Kathmandu. The town is locally known as Khalanga for its history as a military strongpoint. At the time of the 1991 Nepal census it had a population of 5,061 persons residing in 1,066 households.[1]
The town is situated on a mountainside about 500 meters above the intensively cultivated floodplain of Jhimruk Khola about 15 kilometers north of the Mahabharat Range in the Middle Hills. Besides expansive views of Jhimruk valley there are limited views of a few peaks in the western part of the Dhaulagiri range off to the north. The town is populated by government officials, by solders and police of Magar and other "hill tribes" and their mostly Chhetri officers by Newar merchants, by civil servants recruited mostly from local Bahun and Chhetri castes, as well as menial castes who labor as tailors, cobblers, blacksmiths and construction workers.
Before King Gyanendra was removed from office in 2008, this district center was virtually a royalist island in a republican sea. Pyuthan district was the home base of Mohan Bikram Singh who was a charter member of the Communist Party of Nepal. Singh did extensive organizational work in his home district and other parts of Rapti Zone, resulting in local opposition to the Shah dynasty that largely ran the country. Although M. B. Singh was marginalized in leftist politics before the Nepalese Civil War broke out in 1996, his organizational work helped make Rapti Zone the "heartland" of the insurgency and left the district center vulnerable and isolated for the duration.
Pyuthan Khalanga has scheduled bus service via the east-west Mahendra Highway and a spur road along the (West) Rapti River.
Pyuthan District, a part of Rapti Zone, is one of the seventy-five districts of Nepal, a landlocked country of South Asia. The district, with Pyuthan Khalanga as its district headquarters, covers an area of 1,309 km² and has a population (2001) of 212,484.
This hill district is in mid-western Nepal some 250 km west of Kathmandu. It borders Dang Deukhuri District to the southwest along the crest of the Mahabharat Range and extends about 50 km northeast through the Middle Hills to a 3,000+ meter ridge that is both Pyuthan's border with Baglung district of Dhaulagiri Zone and the main watershed between the (west) Rapti and Gandaki River basins. Pyuthan borders Rolpa district to the west. Pyuthan and Rolpa share most of the Jhimruk Khola and Madi Khola upper tributaries of the (west) Rapti watershed, above their conjuction in the Mahabharat Range. On the southeast Pyuthan borders Lumbini Zone including Arghakhanchi and Gulmi districts.
The valley of Jhimruk Khola is the core of Pyuthan district. Bahun and Chhetri farmers grow rice on its irrigated floodplain and they are catered to by Newar merchants. Highlands around the valley are mostly inhabited by Magars, including Kham Magar at higher elevations. The district center Pyuthan Khalanga is situated on a hillside east of the Jhimruk, some 500 meters above it. Madi Khola has eroded an inner gorge and is less suited to traditional agricultural development. At Cherneta a hydroelectric project exploits the two rivers bending within about 1 km of each other, with the Jhimruk some 200 meters higher.
The valleys have a subtropical climate, a little too much winter chill for bananas and papayas and just below the upper elevation limit for mangoes. Citrus, asian pear and mulberries are grown as cash crops in surrounding hills. Snow occasionally falls above 2,400 meters, dusting the tops of higher local mountains but not lasting more than a day or two.
Scheduled buses serve Pyuthan via a spur road off the main east-west Mahendra Highway.
Swargadwari -- a hilltop temple complex and pilgrimage site celebrating the importance of cows in Hinduism -- is located in the southern part of this districtPyuthan was one of 24 small kingdoms in the Chaubisi Rajya confederation before Prithvi Narayan Shah unified modern Nepal in the second half of the 18th century. Since Dang Deukhuri District to the south and Salyan District to the west belonged to another confederation called the Baisi Rajya, Pyuthan was a western outpost of the Chaubisi and probably a defense perimeter defended by forts, for example at Okharkot.
Pyuthan is the home district of Mohan Bikram Singh (1935-), a founder of the Communist Party of Nepal. Singh's organizational work in Pyuthan and other districts of Rapti Zone laid the basis for the area becoming the so-called "heartland" of the Maoist insurgency 1996-2008 that cost some 16,000 lives and transformed Nepal from a kingdom ruled by the Shah dynasty into a republic.
Airabati, Asurkot Bandhikot, Bhagawati Temple, Bhawaniswari Temple, Bhimsensthan, Bhimsen Temple (Kutichaur), Bhimsen Temple (Megazun), Bhimsen Temple (Bijbazar), Bhitrikot Cave, Bhitrikot Durbar, Bhringri Kot, Bhumesthan, Bijulikot, Birdisthan Chhetrapal Temple Devi Bhagawati, Devi Bhagawati Temple, Devi Temple, Dhunge Gadhi, Dubanasthan Ganesh Temple, Ganeshsthan, Gaumukhi, Gorakhnath Temple (Khaira), Gorakhnath Temple (Dakha Kwadi), Gorakhnath Temple (Bijbazar) Jalpadevi Temple, (Bijbazar – Bhagwati), Jalpadevi Temple (Bijbazar), Jhankristhan Kalidevi Temple, Kali Temple, Kalika Malika, Khadga Devata Temple, Khalanga Shivalaya, Khungrikot Laxmi Narayan Temple Masta Mandau, Mehelnath Temple Okharkot Phalaharisthan, Pyuthan Magazine Radha Krishna Temple, Rameswar Temple, Rani Pauwa Saraswati Temple, Sarikot, Shiva Temple (Lung), Shiva Temple (Bangeshal), Shiva Temple (Khalanga), Shivalaya, Siddha Devatasthan (Belbas), Siddha Sansarsthan (Dakha Kwadi), Swargadwari Tatopani Shivalaya, Tripurasundari, Tusharakot Isnasthan Udayapur Kot