216 
E. Vansittart— Tribes, Clans, and Castes of Nepal. [No. 4, 
the west of Kathmandu. This town, and eventually the district is said 
to have obtained its name from a very famous saint called Gorkhanath, 
or Gorakhanath, who resided in a cave, which still exists, in the hill on 
which the city of Gurkha was built. The ancestors of the present race 
of Gurkhas derived their national name of Gurkha from this district, in 
which they first established themselves as an independent power. The 
term Gurkha is not limited to any particular class or clan ; it is applied 
to all those whose ancestors inhabited the country of Gurkha, and who 
from it, subsequently, extended their conquests far and wide over the 
eastern and western hills. 
The men of Doti, Jumla, and other western portions of Nepal and 
the Kumaon hills, are Parbatiyas (highlanders), but they are not Gur¬ 
khas, and never were so, while certain Damais and Sarkhis are recog¬ 
nized as “ Gurkhalis,” notwithstanding their very low social standing, 
from the mere fact of their ancestors having resided in the Gurkha dis¬ 
trict. In 1802, Dr. P. Hamilton wrote:— 
“ The first persons of the Gurkha family, of whom I have heard, were two bro¬ 
thers, named Kanchal andMincha, words altogether barbarous, denoting their descent 
from a Magar family, and not from the Pamars, as they pretend.” 
Khancha (Khahca) was the founder of the imperial branch of the 
family, viz., they remained Magars. Mincha (Minca) was the chief of 
Nayakot. He adopted the Hindu rules of purity, and his descendants 
intermarried with the best families, although not without creating 
disgust. To these were granted the lofty rank and honour of the 
Kshatriya order, viz., they became Khas. 
The Khancha family possessed Bhirkot, Gharhung, and Dhdr. 
Bhirkot seems to have been the head of the whole, as its chief was 
at the head of a league containing Nayakot. 
Mincha, the Baja of Nayakot, and the chiefs of this place, al¬ 
though they lived pure, continued to the last to follow in war the im¬ 
pure representatives of Khancha. A branch of the Mincha family ruled 
at Kaski. The chief of Lamzung was descended from a younger son 
of the Kaski ruler, and in time became very powerful, and he was 
followed in war not only by his kinsman, the chief of Kaski, but by the 
Baja of Tanahung. 
One of the Lamzung Bajas had a younger brother, Darbha Sahi2 
1 “Kanca” is the Khus Khura for “younger brother.” 
2 It should be noted that a descendant of Mincha, the converted Mangar, 
appears within a few generations as a Thakur of the Sahi clan in Darbha Sabi. 
It is also interesting to note how Mincha, the Raja of Nayakot, and the chiefs 
of this place, although they lived pure, nevertheless to the last followed in war the 
impure representatives of Khancha ; but a few generations later we see this invert- 
