Licchavi dynasty of Nepal

The first documented dynasty

The Licchavis claimed connection with the Vajjian clan of Vaiśālī, and ruled the Kathmandu valley from the fifth to the eighth century. Their inscriptions — beginning with the Changu Narayan pillar of 464 CE, the oldest dated document in Nepal — are in Sanskrit and record land grants, water works, temple endowments and the administration of the valley's towns.

This is the period in which the valley's distinctive civilisation takes shape: the Newar towns with their courtyards and shrines, the tiered pagoda temple in timber and brick, the metal casting and stone sculpture, and the coexistence of Hindu and Buddhist practice in the same families and often the same buildings.

The Pashupatinath and Changu Narayan shrines and the Buddhist stupas at Swayambhu and Bauddha all have Licchavi-period foundations.

Amshuvarma and Tibet

Amshuvarma, ruling in the early seventh century, is the best-documented figure — Xuanzang mentions Nepal and its king, and Amshuvarma's inscriptions show an unusually active administration.

His daughter or kinswoman Bhrikuti is said in Tibetan tradition to have married Songtsen Gampo, the Tibetan emperor, alongside the Chinese princess Wencheng, and to have brought Buddhism to Tibet. The Nepali sources do not record the marriage, and its historicity is debated; the trade and religious traffic between the valley and Tibet through this period is not.

The dynasty is followed in the chronicles by an obscure period conventionally called the Thakuri, before the Malla ascendancy.