Shrestha Thar

What “Thar” means for the Newar

Thar is the Nepali word for a family or clan name, written as a surname. Among Newars the patrilineal kin group itself is the phuki, an exogamous lineage that worships a common lineage deity (digu dya). Shrestha is both a caste-group title and, for many families, the thar they write.

Name and Origin

The name comes from Sanskrit shreshtha, 'best' or 'most excellent'; some accounts derive it instead from shishta, 'cultured' or 'noble', through a Newar form. Before the Gorkhali conquest of the Valley in the 1760s, Shrestha was a collective high-status title for Hindu clans who served the Malla courts as administrators, landholders and merchants. Accounts summarised from Gellner and Toffin say many families began to use it as a caste name from the 18th century.

Historical Journey

Scholars describe two historically accepted divisions inside the Shrestha group. The Chatharia (Chatharīya) are the clans with Kshatriya standing, many tracing themselves to Malla courtiers and nobles; they are known by clan titles such as Pradhan, Malla, Amatya, Rajbhandari, Joshi and Maskey rather than by Shrestha. The Panchthariya are the merchant clans, who mostly write Shrestha as their thar. The anthropologists Colin Rosser (1966) and Declan Quigley (1995, in the chapter 'Śresthas: Heterogeneity among Hindu Patron Lineages') disagree about how unified the group is, and Bal Gopal Shrestha's 2007 article in the European Bulletin of Himalayan Research sets out that debate. Shrestha is therefore best read as a status group made of many unrelated lineages, each with its own phuki and its own lineage deity. Because the name is also a surname, it is not proof that two families are related.

Migration and Diaspora

Newar traders and officials carried the Shrestha name out of the Kathmandu Valley along the trade routes to other towns of Nepal, and the surname is now found in every district of Nepal. Some families from other Newar groups have also taken the name, so a Shrestha outside the Valley may or may not belong to the Valley's historic Shrestha clans.

How the Thar Is Kept

The working unit is the phuki, the group of men descended through the male line; those who call each other phuki are an exogamous lineage. The phuki worships a lineage god, the digu dya (also written digu dyo or dugu dya), usually kept as stones, and observes birth and death pollution together. In towns the digu dya pūjā guthi often splits into smaller groups; kin who have split ritually are called bhu phuki or bā phuki. Digu Puja is described in a 2020 paper as a rite that keeps separated family members in contact. Shrestha families are described as Hindu (Shivamargi), while the Buddhist (Buddhamarga) Newar groups named in the same accounts are Vajracharya, Shakya and Uray; the accounts note that some Shrestha families have supported Buddhist viharas and that Newar Hindus and Buddhists share many festivals. The sources I read describe digu dya for Newars generally and do not split it by religion.

Presence Across Regions