Join us as we explore the captivating story behind Nepal's national anthem, "Sayaun Thunga Phool Ka." This episode delves into the cultural and historical significance of the anthem, highlighting how it reflects the nation's diversity and unity. We'll uncover the journey of the anthem's composer, Amber Gurung, and the poet, Pradeep Kumar Rai, who crafted the lyrics that resonate with the spirit of Nepal. The discussion takes us through Nepal's tumultuous history, including its transition from a monarchy to a democratic republic, and the role music played in shaping national identity. With insights into the anthem's melody and lyrics, we celebrate the beauty of Nepal as a tapestry woven from its rich heritage and the sacrifices of its people.

Here are my sources, notes, and reading for the episode. Thanks for listening folks

1. https://myrepublica.nagariknetwork.com/news/3513/ 
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2Gne3UHKHs 
3. https://archive.org/details/nepal0000bhat 
4. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_National_Review/xDUFAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA609&printsec=frontcover 
5. https://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/ancientnepal/pdf/ancient_nepal_154_02.pdf 
6. https://web.archive.org/web/20080906154632/http://www.tki.org.nz/r/socialscience/curriculum/SSOL/hillary/campII_e.php 
7. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Nepal/-aArqOqBGBQC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA32&printsec=frontcover 
8. https://www.recordnepal.com/the-making-of-the-gorkha-empire-part-i-%E2%80%93-land 
9. https://www.britannica.com/place/Nepal/History 
10. https://web.archive.org/web/20161220102904/http://nepalarmy.mil.np/history.php?page=three 
11. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Democratic_Innocations_in_Nepal/MX22o4PJ3Q0C?hl=en 
12. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Thapa_Politics_in_Nepal/7PP1yElRzIUC?hl=en 
13. https://sites.ff.cuni.cz/praguepapers/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2017/09/Matteo_Miele_90-101.pdf 
14. https://web.archive.org/web/20140314133047/http://archives.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=22110 
15. https://web.archive.org/web/20160610120116/http://www.enayapatrika.com/2016/06/68136 
16. https://thehimalayantimes.com/kathmandu/nepal-national-anthem-composer-amber-gurung-dies-79/ 
17. https://www.thahakhabar.com/news/58253/ 
18. https://myrepublica.nagariknetwork.com/news/5-things-about-byakul-maila/ 
19. https://www.peoplesreview.com.np/2022/09/26/byakul-maila-to-get-rs-50000-per-month/#google_vignette 
20. https://www.bbc.com/nepali/news/story/2007/08/070803_national_anthem 
21. https://nagariknews.nagariknetwork.com/others/177988-1556940960.html 
22. https://theblanket.ulib.iupui.edu/cgnepal.html 
23. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Republic_or_Death/GeasCAAAQBAJ?hl=en 
24. https://web.archive.org/web/20070927023024/http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?nid=117987

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Hello and welcome to the Anthems podcast.

I'm Patrick and I'm here to tell.

You the story of a song that.

Helps to tell the story of a nation. Today we are headed to East Asia.

9656 km capital to capital.

It's not the longest leap we've made.

By quite a bit, but this one is fun because Google Maps is pretty sure that you could walk it in 124 days.

Then you go northwest across Algeria and Libya, then you get to the coast through Egypt, across the Suez canal, head straight up through Israel and past the West bank, then head east at Damascus, then right across the Middle east through Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, not in that order.

Iran comes before Afghanistan, then across Pakistan and the top of India to reach our goal, Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal.

And here is another country that I've.

Gone into with a pretty stark lack of knowledge about. But I was aware of perhaps two of the most famous things about it.

It's where Mount Everest is and it's also where Siddhartha Guatema was born, as in the Buddha, the guy who started Buddhism. Here again, though, we are hearing about the anthem of a country that was picked by my mom.

This time she walked a few steps.

Towards my world map with her eyes closed, spun her hand around a little bit and pointed. It should not surprise us that it's not a completely random process.

Humans are super bad at consciously picking random things and I don't know that we can actually do that. And my mom's a certain height at.

The shoulder and extending her arm shoulder.

Height and getting a maybe five or.

Six inch diameter circle with her finger.

Narrows down where it could be, but it's random enough for my purposes because it gets me to make a decision and it's the reason that I'm going to be telling you about the Sean thunga folka or made of hundreds of flowers. It will be an educational episode and I've been enjoying the reading for this one.

I may or may not have mentioned before here that I am a fairly dedicated math nerd. As a part of my nerd life I've done a lot of euclidean compass and straight edge geometric construction.

It's possible this is a relic of me being in drafting in high school. Nepal is to my knowledge, the only country with a non rectangular flag.

And the constitution contains instructions for how to geometrically construct that flag using euclidean methods. Source number two is a link to the numberphile video on YouTube that does it.

And of course I have drawn the.

Flag and it's satisfying to do because it's been a while since I did a compass in straightedge drawing. It's incredible, and it tells us a lot about the country that produced the next minute and 18 seconds of anthem.

Sayyutunga fulka hamiyotaimi sayatunga pulkarity la jala gata.

Most of the versions that I've heard.

From it, particularly the one I played, my kid even liked it when I asked her that she listened to the tune. It doesn't sound much like the other anthems that we've heard so far, and that might be what appeals to me.

Something that I've come to find that.

I'm not a huge fan of is certain specific vagaries about history. In the case of Nepal, my current.

Irritating vagary is that we don't get.

To know how the country got its name for sure. All we've got are theories and legends. It might have been named for the tibetan word for wool and house. So Nepal, as in house of wool.

May have been named for the newer.

Word Nepa, meaning country of the middle zone. It might have been the Lepsha people.

Thinking of a sacred cave.

Hindu mythology in buddhist legend name it after an ancient sage called Neddin. So who knows, I guess. But at least we can pin down where in the world we are. After doing this show for like a year and a half, I've started to.

Kind of know where stuff is in.

The world, but I'm still learning. It gives me an interesting problem because I have to explain where stuff is.

To other people in terms that make.

Sense, even though I'm still figuring out how to do that. However, I feel like a lot of people know where India and China are because they're very big. At least you might if you're not.

From the US, because apparently we are.

Famously bad at geography. My education lightly brushed at it in school, but it wasn't really a priority according to what I've read.

You see the show notes, folks, we're worse than geography, than the rest of the world, but not that much worse. Like maybe 10%. So it's really not that bad.

I suspect it'll only matter during international.

Travel when the gps system finally fails us anyway, assuming you know where India and China are, then you might know.

That there are a couple of countries.

That are kind of crammed in between them. They're semi enclaved in between them. More on that in a second. Nepal is the bigger one, and it.

Is to the west of the other.

The other country is Bhutan.

These are states that are surrounded by only two other countries, whereas an enclave country like the Vatican is completely surrounded by just one.

It's another not super long list.

I'm not going to read it, though.

We'Ve already encountered one of them on the show.

It is Liechtenstein. That was, however, not my geography or something factoid for this episode. This one is a thing that I kind of find terrifying in a Lovecraftian way.

It's called the Khumbu icefall, and it's just a bit up from base camp on Mount Everest at about 18,000ft and.

Consists of a 600 meters climb up.

A chasm filled ice flow that equates to a linear mile at 37.7% pitch and it moves three or 4ft a day. So you get these extra huge, deep.

And crushing gorges that come and go.

Despite the fact that I'm pretty sure.

If I had time and a knowledgeable.

Team I could get up that mountain, I won't even try just because of this thing, because I'm terrified of falling into an ice gorge that slowly crushes me. But I'm pretty sure of lots of stuff.

Like I'm pretty sure I could write a proper history of Nepal if I had a lifetime worth of scholarship to devote to it, even though I probably would need three or four. We're talking about a region that certainly.

Doesn'T have the depth of human prehistory that Africa does. But people have lived in modern Nepal.

As early as 300 BCE. As far as what they've actually written down, though, we get to go back far enough that it's legend.

So sometime in the 30th century BCE, as far as actual physical evidence of religious sites can confirm. As usual, I can't start all the way back there because the country wasn't a country there and then in the same way that it was when it got an anthem.

I'm sure there were tribal territories or some kind, but that is straying outside of anything I've read for this. So honestly, I can't say for sure.

But a fun and interesting thing about Nepal is that while it has had many the dynasty and ruler amongst its subdivided history, its been pretty cohesive as a region with a shared culture since around the 6th century BCE. But since were talking about a national anthem, we need the country to exist.

As a nation in the contemporary sense of the word.

The consolidation of no less than 46.

Separate kingdoms in a region that is roughly the size of the state of New York. It reminds me a bit of the pre revolution situation in Italy. If you were not here for that story, episode two is waiting for you.

But it only reminds me of Italy a bit because it was not as fractured. The most important figure in that part of the story is somebody named Prithvi Neron Shah.

They were the 9th generation king of Gorkha, one of the aforementioned fractioned kingdoms.

Given the position of the region between India and China, the king took to calling it a yam in between two boulders, and he foresaw a reason to unify the disparate hill kingdoms into a single region. Otherwise they'd all be swallowed up by one or both of the larger neighbors.

As will later heard of, this policy has persistently informed Nepal's foreign policy for a very long time after unification.

The king was correct in his assessment.

Of the region being tenuous as a collection of weak states, and he was able to fairly easily subjugate a majority of them in short order.

As far as subjugations of nation states.

Goes, he basically sieged the area by.

Going around and taking over the kingdoms.

That had ways to get out of the Indus valley.

Given that the point of this particular show is not to talk about individual wars and battles, we're going to brush past a bunch of that and skip to the last bits of the unification. When in desperation, King Malla of Kathmandu.

Reached out to the British for help. They sent in soldiers from the East.

It as the capital of the new kingdom, Nepal. The kingdom would last up until the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Nepal.

Was an attempt at expansion by his.

Heirs, namely by taking over some of the disputed princely kingdoms that bordered then british occupied India.

This led to the Anglo nepalese war.

Although Nepal was granted some of the.

The shape of the country as far.

As I'm aware of. But it was not the last dramatic political event in Nepal.

The next major dynasty were descendants of the nephews of a murdered king of.

The Shah dynasty, and they took power in a story that I wish I had more time to go back and read about, but I will someday probably actual murder is never an interesting part in a story like that, and here sometimes all we get are historical punchlines.

This new regime was a tightly centralized autocracy, and it was able to maintain independence from colonial Britain and China by being an isolationist and pro british state at the same time. It was a choice that meant that.

The country was allowed to remain independent.

But it also created a very isolationist economy and in a small economy, delays modernization. Although to be fair, I'm not here.

To make an argument for or against modernization.

And right through both world wars, they.

Signed a treaty of perpetual peace and friendship.

That among the bunch of other stuff that it did, it was the first formal acknowledgement by the British that Nepal.

Was actually an independent nation and had.

The right to its own foreign policy.

Point, the composer has been alive for.

Father had become a policeman.

After he left the british army, his.

Mother taught him to sing and compose as a child, and he learned both.

Western and eastern music primarily in the.

Same way that he learned how to.

Play six or seven different instruments. He taught himself. He could play the violin, piano, guitar, mandolin, tabla, and other things.

We don't get a real granular picture of his life growing up, but he does grow up to be a non trivial person in the musical life of Nepal. To start off, all my sources insisting that despite being a literal teenager, he founded something called the Art Academy of.

Mathematically and timeline wise, I have trouble with that, but I don't know.

What seems more plausible to me is.

His first recorded song about the suffering of the nepali diaspora, called Nau Lakhi tara being the opening salvo of a.

Recording career that established him as an.

Architect of modern nepalese music.

I know that he moved to Nepal.

Where his parents were from, and then he moved away.

In more detail soon, he was asked to provide the music to be considered for the new national anthem of the.

In an interview about five years before he died, he said that music is not entertainment and it is instead serious art, and it must shake the very foundation of my listeners. Amber was not a poethen, but he wasn't on the team that picked the poem that became the anthem.

Publishing poetry that he began writing during.

Law school to sort through his feelings of lostness and homesicken. He came from a rural background, and the press of city life in Kathmandu had him feeling overwhelmed. But Mela did obtain his law degree.

And since has been heavily involved in.

Social services, village development processes, youth sports, and other programs that benefit the young people in Nepal. He seems like a genuinely wholesome guy.

In the interviews that I've seen him.

In and that I've read about him in, despite having been become extremely well known in his country and even granted a pension for his contribution to nepalese culture. He's also very much alive, and he's.

Even got a Twitter or an x.

Or whatever that thing is called. Now.

He said that when he initially decided.

To try and write the anthem, he wrote down the requirements and then missed.

The deadline and was only able to.

Enter his piece because they extended the submission time by 15 days.

Initially, after being picked there was some controversy, and Pradeep was accused of being a monarchist, but the decision was eventually made official.

Why there was any controversy at all.

Requires a time jump back so we.

Can talk about how the country came.

To need a new anthem at all. There's a lot of reasons that revolutions happen in Nepal.

We get a good old fashioned communist insurgency.

And killed nine people in the royal.

Family and then himself.

This led to the king's brother taking power.

Some serious instability happened in the country at this point, and the new king.

Did not do a great job of.

Trying to fix it.

This led to the abolishment of the.

Actually sorted out the government enough to.

Declare the new country and promulgate the constitution.

A 14 member committee that included Amber.

The poems were subject to a very.

Specific list of things that I cannot get a definitive source on, actually, but I know it included certain stuff, like a poem that had to be 48 words or less, must be eight lines.

Must include devotion to the country and.

Have no vulgar words in it. Possible themes included love and glory to the country, history, culture, and stories of heroism.

Now, I have not heard of a national anthem contest having such specific parameters before, but I suppose that there should.

Be some basic requirements for these contest.

Things, or you end up with something like anthem McAnthem face, at any rate.

After some wrangling and judging in a.

False monarchist controversy, because Baiekel once wrote.

A dedication for a collection of poetry.

That the former king contributed a single poem to. Given the modern state of politics in the United States and all over the world, in fact, I'm 0% surprised by these people's behavior despite that.

I can go on to discuss the song itself. Musically, we are again granted another refreshingly.

Simple and refreshingly local song with Saiyan thunga Phulka.

Amber said it was actually a pretty difficult thing to write because they wanted the song to be simple enough that literally anybody in the country would be able to manage to play or sing it.

So it was written in the key of g with a major mode, has a range of a single octave, and it is played at a moderate four four, which is about 96 beats per minute. It must have a positive feel. It's a very nepalese song, and it's so different from almost all of the other anthems.

I'm into it, and I've added it to my playlist. The translation that I'm going to read is the same one that's on the English Wikipedia. It is a poetic translation, not a literal one.

It gets the feeling of the thing right.

As far as I can tell from what I have read, it is not 48 words long or less because it's a translation.

And I will admit to being briefly.

Confused by that, as silly as it sounds, because why would English and Nepalese have a one to one word ratio? But it's a silly thing to think this is another anthem that we're going to hear right through, and then I'll talk about it.

For something this short and cohesive, I'd like to discuss it as a whole object onto the lyrics.

Like the single one garland made of hundreds of us as flowers stretched as the sovereign state, spreading from Maki to Mahakali, rich of countless heritage from the nature, freedom, and always firm, that all owned with the brave martyr's blood as the land of knowledge and the peace spanning in terrain, hills and mountains, dearer is this indivisible motherland, Nepal, having diverse races and languages, religions and cultures, as so great in her long and long live our progressive nation, Nepal.

The task of this anthem is trying to distill the essence of Nepal through metaphor, symbolizing the country as a single garland of individual flowers. This imagery suggests unity and collective strength derived from diverse components. And Nepal is indeed a diverse place.

There are something approaching 130 different ethnic groups, and they speak 123 different languages. At least. Each flower represents a citizen contributing to the beauty and integrity of the sovereign state. Stretching from Mechi to Mahakali.

It's about 148 miles as the crow flies, because the Himalayas would make that a tough drive.

This spatial reference underscores Nepals geographic span and cultural richness, portraying it as a tapestry woven with countless heritage and natural splendor.

The use of garland helps convey a sense of interconnectedness and shared identity among the people, so it starts off pretty strongly as far as anthems go. The poem also highlights the sacrifices that were made by the brave martyrs whose blood has endowed the nation with freedom and unwavering strength.

This acknowledgment of past sacrifice underscores a deep sense of gratitude and reverence for.

The country's history in the individuals who.

Have shaped its present.

The author was a part of some of the protests against the new king's reactionary methods, and although he obviously was not killed, he was shot with rubber bullets.

The lines as the land of knowledge and peace, spanning in terrain, hills, and mountains, not only emphasize Nepal's diverse topography but also its intellectual and peaceful heritage, or at least pretty far from war mongering heritage. The repetition of these natural elements accentuates the nation's vast and varied landscape. It contributes to its cultural and historical richness.

Finally, the poem celebrates Nepal's inherent diversity, mentioning its multitude of races, languages, religions, and cultures. I mentioned the impressive numbers already, so I won't repeat, but there's something huh?

This diversity is presented not as a point of division but as a testament to the nation's greatness. Theyre also quite a biodiverse place, too, netting the 49th spot in the world with some 22,000 species.

The concluding wish for the long and.

Prosperous life of Nepal reflects a deep sense of patriotism and hope for the future.

The reference to the country as an.

Indivisible motherland reinforces the idea of unity amidst diversity, portraying Nepal as a progressive nation that cherishes its past while looking forward to continued growth and harmony. Overall, I think we're treated to an anthem that is very appropriate to the country and manages to feel nepalese in.

Ways that many other anthems fail to.

Feel like their own country.

This was an interesting place to learn.

About and a surprising story in several ways. It's a nice break from the revolving door of colonialism and soviet breakups that this kind of history can get you locked in.

We managed to narrowly avoid wading into the narrative surrounding the second world War.

Too, and we got a very distinctly local song made by people that lived and breathed and are still breathing the country's air, and they are involved in it in a general racial way as well as an anthem, it just sounds fantastic.

It's a good song coupled with a geographically and culturally unique place that makes Nepal pretty high on the list of places that I might actually get on a plane for someday. At the moment, though, we're all going to get this episode's iteration of the credits. But first, I have an announcement to make.

I have joined the creator accountability network.

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I joined because I care about the safety and well being of community members, and I believe people should hold themselves accountable.

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We'd like more people to get credentialed and help build safer communities. The writing, recording, and production for the show are done by me, and I wrote and played the theme music.

The music was used by me with my permission unless otherwise noted. The anthems I play are public domain or some other equivalently free to play license, and this time I'm not sure I need permission.

My sources and the specific items I mentioned in the show are contained in the show notes.

The most direct way to get to.

Those show notes is anthemspodcast.com. you can find me on Facebook and WhatsApp as the Anthems podcast podcast. You should follow me on Facebook when I do post.

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Right now you're hearing the very end of the show.

So I'm gonna guess that you didn't hate it. Or if you did, I'd like to hear about that and why you got all the way to the credits.

For now, I try to get the episode shared onto whatever platform I can with the hashtag Hash anthemspod. It would be cool if you hashtag to post like that too, and it.

Also makes you cooler than being a.

Smoker did in the nineties. As always, you can email me corrections, comments, suggestions, ideas, instructions, concerns, and even ask me questions@anthemspodmail.com.

for better or for worse, I've made.

It possible to leave me a voicemail.

That's actually way more important because ratings and reviews matter to algorithms and those things rule our lives. Or maybe the next time you go to a car wash, you leave this very episode playing extremely loud on your bluetooth speaker so everybody can enjoy it.

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I'll see you next time.