The Gorkha kingdom was founded in 1559 by Dravya Shah (ड्रव्य शाह), one of the region's petty hill chiefs. Seven generations later, on 11 January 1723, Prithvi Narayan Shah was born. When he took the throne in 1743, Gorkha was small — but it sat on the arteries of the valley's trans-Himalayan trade, and its young king had seen the Kathmandu Valley's three courts squander their strength on each other.गोरखा राज्य १५५९ मा ड्रव्य शाहले स्थापित गरेका थिए। सात पुस्तापछि १७२३ मा जन्मेका पृथ्वीनारायण शाह १७४३ मा गद्दीमा बसे — र उपत्यकाका तीन दरबारको आपसी दुर्बलता नियाले।
The Conquestsविजय-क्रम
His method was as important as his victories: blockade before battle. By strangling the valley's trade, feeding famine, and letting the three Malla kings exhaust themselves in mutual betrayal, he took in one night what a siege could never have won.उनको विधि विजयभन्दा महत्वपूर्ण थियो: पहिले नाकाबन्दी, पछि युद्ध। व्यापार अवरुद्ध गरेर, भोक फैलाएर र तीन राजाको आपसी वैर देखेर उनले एकै रात उपत्यका लिए।
The Divya Upadeshदिव्य उपदेश
On his deathbed at Devighat (11 January 1775), the unifier left counsels that Nepali political culture still quotes. The text, attributed to his court council at Nuwakot and first published in 1952–53 by historians Baburam Acharya and Yogi Naraharinath (its authenticity has been questioned, notably by Kamal P. Malla), contains the two most famous lines in Nepalese history:मृत्युको शय्यामा उनले दिव्य उपदेश छोडे — जसका दुई पंक्ति आज पनि नेपाली राजनीतिमा उद्धृत हुन्छन्:
"मेरा साना दुखले आर्ज्याको मुलुक होइन, यो चार जात छत्तिश वर्ण सबैको साझा फूलबारी हो, सबैलाइ चेतना भया।
यो नेपाल चार वर्ण छत्तिश वर्णको साझा फूलबारी हो — यो मेरो मानिसको फूलबारी हो।
— "This is not a kingdom won by my little efforts — it is the common garden of four castes and thirty-six sub-castes"
"दुई ढुङ्गाबीचको तरुल।
"A yam between two boulders."
— On Nepal's place between Qing China and British India — and his warning that the "true India" was not the Company's to give away