More than 800 rare documents from Nepal—some dating back to the 13th century—have been formally returned to the country after years of conservation and research work in Germany.

The collection, assembled by Bavarian collector Josef Peter Walter Rindfleisch between 1980 and 2000, had been entrusted to the Indologist Prof. Dr. Axel Michaels of Heidelberg University with the explicit aim of eventual repatriation. On 24 April 2026, representatives of the Nepali government officially received the materials at a ceremony in Heidelberg. The agreement was signed by Sagar Phuyal, chargé d’affaires a.i. of Nepal’s embassy in Berlin and Prof. Dr. Axel Michaels.

Scholars say the holdings are likely one of the largest collections of Nepalese palmleaf rolls outside Nepal. At its core are 465 Newari palm-leaf rolls, most of them bearing clay seals and dating to the medieval Malla period (c. 1200–1800). The archive also includes royal decrees, court records, Sanskrit manuscripts, and a wide range of historical materials—from legal documents and ritual texts to photographs, maps, and personal writings. Fifteen bound volumes in the collection document palace life, state expeditions, and official correspondence from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

“This collection offers a unique window into Nepal’s political, legal, and religious history across several centuries,” said Michaels, who heads the project “Documents on the History of Religion and Law of Pre-modern Nepal” at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

When the manuscripts first arrived in Heidelberg, their provenance was only partially documented, and many items were in poor condition. Mold, insect damage, and earlier repair attempts had left visible traces. Conservation specialists carried out extensive restoration work: fragile palm-leaf scrolls were humidified, carefully opened, cleaned, repaired, and digitized before being rolled again and placed in acid-free archival storage.

The project received support in 2022 from the Flagship Initiative “Transforming Cultural Heritage” (FI TCH), enabling systematic cataloguing and digitization. Today, the collection is accessible online via Heidelberg University Library and integrated into the Documenta Nepalica research database. An open access cataogue of metadata of the collection will soon be released from Heidelberg University Publishing.

As part of the handover event, Dr. Manik Bajracharya and Dr. Rajan Khatiwoda offered insights into the collection. Both are leading scholars in the research project “Documents on the History of Religion and Law of Pre-modern Nepal,” based at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Prof. Dr. Christiane Brosius, a researcher at the Heidelberg Center for Transcultural Studies, presented the “Nepal Heritage Documentation Project”, which systematically records endangered cultural assets in Nepal—such as temples, monasteries, palaces, and inscriptions—and makes them digitally accessible. Welcoming remarks were delivered by Prof. Dr. Marc-Philippe Weller, Vice-Rector for International Affairs and Diversity, and Prof. Dr. Hans Harder, Director of the South Asia Institute.

Receiving the manuscripts, CDA a.i. Mr. Phuyal expressed sincere appreciation to Professor Dr. Michaels and all individuals involved in the preservation and repatriation process. He highlighted that this gesture reflects a deep respect for Nepal’s cultural heritage and contributes significantly to the country’s ongoing efforts to recover and safeguard its historical assets.

For Michaels, the dual approach—digital access and physical return—was essential. “Making the materials available worldwide is one goal,” he said. “But returning them to Nepal is equally important. It acknowledges their cultural significance and our responsibility toward their history.”

With the handover, a substantial body of Nepal’s written heritage will be returned home – preserved for future generations, yet accessible to researchers around the world.

Ranjan Yadav (1st Secretary), Dipendra Sah (3rd Secretary),* Dr. Mani Bajracharya, *Dr. Ramhari Timalsina, *Dr. Rajan Khatiwoda, Prof. Christiane Brosius (Director Nepal Heritage Documentation Project), Chargé d’Affaires a.i. Sagar Phuyal, *Prof. Axel Michaels, Prorektor Marc-Philippe Weller, Prof. Hans Harder (Director South Asia Institute) – Ⓒ Philipp Rothe

* Members of the Nepal Research Unit at Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities 

DOCUMENTA NEPALICA VOL. 8   

Michaels, Axel, Xu Yunheng. Who Won the Sino-Nepalese War of 1791–1792? A Study in Transcultural Complexity. Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, 2026 (Documenta Nepalica: Book Series, Vol. 8). https://doi.org/10.17885/heiup.1666

On October 4, 2025, the World Newah Organization—a diaspora organization of the Newar people from Nepal registered in Baltimore, USA—presented the Nepal Research Group team with an award in recognition of the exhibition co-curated by the research center “Buṅgadyaḥ: The Rain-Making God” in the CATS Library.

Kumar Napit, President of the German section of the World Newah Organization, and Bishnu Malla, a renowned artist from Nepal, presented the certificate on behalf of the World Newah Organization. In doing so, he expressed their gratitude to the curatorial team—comprising Prof. Christiane Brosius, Dr. Manik Bajracharya, Dr. Marion Wettstein, Prof. Simon Cubelic, Dr. Monalisa Maharjan, and Dr. Rajan Khatiwoda—for promoting understanding and appreciation of Newar culture in Germany and throughout Europe. He also reaffirmed the diaspora community’s commitment to supporting the research group’s activities.

The exhibition focuses on the procession of Buṅgadyaḥ (Rāto Matsyendranātha), one of the largest and most elaborate ritual events in the Kathmandu Valley and a defining element of Newar culture. It explores the procession through four interwoven themes: places, people, texts, and performances, each of which offers insights into the cultural and ritual vitality of this tangible and intangible heritage. The exhibition opened in conjunction with the 28th European Conference on South Asian Studies (ECSAS) and will run through November 25, 2025.

The 28th European Conference for South Asian Studies (ECSAS) took place in Heidelberg from October 1 to 4, 2025. Staff members from the research project contributed to the conference with a panel discussion and presentations. Manik Bajracharya, Nirajan Kafle, and Rajan Khatiwoda chaired the panel “Hinduisation and Sanskritisation in the Himalayas,” which featured presentations by Alessandro Giudice, Arik Moran, Astrid Zotter, Devaki Sapkota, Pradip Ghimire, Nirajan Kafle, Manik Bajracharya & Rajan Khatiwoda, and Monalisa Maharjan.

In addition, Christof Zotter and Julia Shrestha presented papers in other panels. For her paper (“Mundhumi Natak – The Limbu Oral Tradition in Contemporary Nepali Theatre”), Julia Shrestha received this year’s EASAS Research Student Award, which is given to outstanding doctoral student papers presented at the conference.

The research project also showcased its publications at a book booth at the conference.

On September 13, 2025, Shobhit Shakya, Manik Bajracharya, and Rajan Khatiwoda presented at the Newah Academic Conference on Culture and Heritage (NACCH) at SOAS University of London. Their presentations were titled “Newars and Their Heritage: From Heritage Mentality to Ecological Approach to Heritage?” (Shakya) and “Challenges and Opportunities in Documenting the Tangible and Intangible Heritage of the Kathmandu Valley” (Bajracharya and Khatiwoda).

The Research Project welcomes Dr. Shobhit Shakya as a new member of the team. As part of the Research Project, he is conducting a postdoctoral project on traditional institutions in Nepal, their role in historical governance, and their development over the course of history. Shobhit holds a PhD in Public Administration from the Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance at Tallinn University of Technology in Estonia. His research focuses on perspectives from non-Western governance, with a particular emphasis on the Himalayan region, and explores topics such as Buddhist governance principles, digitality, and civic engagement. He has conducted extensive research on the Guthi institution in Nepal from the perspective of local governance. Shobhit is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London, UK, and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Halduskultuur – The Estonian Journal of Administrative Culture and Digital Governance.

On December 7, 2024, Marija Grujovska and Julia Shrestha presented their research findings on documents from the Documenta Nepalica corpus at the 14th International Indology Graduate Research Symposium (IIGRS) at Toyo University in Tokyo, Japan. Their presentations were titled: “The Daily and Occasional Worship Trust of Tripureśvara Temple” (Marija Grujovska) and “‘May We Obtain nagarās?’—Insights into the Socio-Political Roles of nagarā Kettledrums among the Limbu Indigenous Group from 19th-Century Nepalese Documents” (Julia Shrestha).

On November 10, 2024, Dr. Rajan Khatiwoda presented his book Homicide Law in 19th-Century Nepal: A Study of the Muluki Ains and Legal Documents (Heidelberg University Publishing, Documenta Nepalica: Book Series, Vol. 7, 2024) at the Martin Chautari Institute in Kathmandu. The occasion marked the publication of the South Asian edition of the book by Vajra Books. This edition is intended to make the work accessible to a wider audience in Nepal and South Asia.

Prof. Triratna Manandhar of Tribhuvan University (Kathmandu) and Shubhanga Pandey, a doctoral candidate at the University of California (Los Angeles), enriched the event with their contributions.  

https://vajrabookshop.com/product/homicide-law-in-19th-century-nepal-a-study-of-the-muluki-ains-and-legal-documents/

On October 21, 2024, the Research Department, in collaboration with the Martin Chautari Institute, the South Asia Institute Kathmandu Branch, and the Nepal Heritage Documentation Project, organized a joint lecture series to discuss and exchange information on ongoing research projects and infrastructure. The program took place at the Yala Maya Kendra in Patan, Nepal, and included a session led by Dr. Manik Bajracharya titled “Documenta Nepalica: A Digital Research Environment for the Study of Nepal’s Historical Documents,” in which Dr. Bajracharya presented the research unit’s digital infrastructure and its applications for the study of Nepal’s historical documents. Dr. Rajan Khatiwoda presented on: Digital Preservation of Tangible and Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Kathmandu Valley. Pratyoush Onta and Devendra Uprety gave a presentation on: History of Public School Education in Nepal during the Long 20th Century: Non-State-Centered Perspectives and Examples.

On August 16, 2024, The Mulukī Ain of 1854 – Nepal's First Legal Code by Simon Cubelic, Rajan Khatiwoda, and Axel Michaels was presented at an event organized by the Kathmandu branch of the Institute of South Asian Studies at Heidelberg University. Originally published in 2021 by Heidelberg University Publishing as part of the Documenta Nepalica book series, the book has now been reissued by Vajra Publications to make it accessible to a wider audience in Nepal and South Asia.

The event began with a presentation of the book by Dr. Rajan Khatiwoda, followed by remarks from Prof. Prayag Raj Sharma and a lively discussion among the participants.

 https://kathmandupost.com/books/2024/07/27/english-translation-of-muluki-ain-1854-published

On July 20, 2024, Prof. Axel Michaels published *Nepal: A History from the Earliest Times to the Present* (Oxford University Press, 2024).

This book traces the history of Nepal’s cultural, religious, and sociopolitical diversity as a landlocked nation between India and China (Tibet)—a country with 125 recognized ethnic groups, 123 languages, and a wealth of religions, textual and art-historical traditions, and diverse political power centers.

The focus is on a transcultural history of the region that takes into account diverse political claims and forms of organization, multiple and fluid identities, as well as cross-border transcultural, transreligious, and economic interconnections.

A central theme running through the book is the question of how the country’s major challenges—including social conflicts, nationalization, infrastructure, education, migration, divided forms of governance, and political instability—can be addressed without jeopardizing its impressive ethnic and cultural diversity.

Michaels, Axel. 2024. Nepal: A History from the Earliest Times to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press https://academic.oup.com/book/56088

On June 29, 2024, Marija Grujovska and Julia Shrestha gave presentations as part of the 3rd German South Asia Day (June 28–29) at the University of Leipzig. Their presentations were titled “Royal Land Endowments in 19th-Century Nepal” (Marija Grujovska) and “The Yuma Mundhum: An Oral Text about the Limbu Grandmother Goddess from Eastern Nepal” (Julia Shrestha).

The Research Project warmly welcomes Julia Shrestha as its new research associate. Julia holds a master’s degree in South Asian Studies with a focus on anthropology from Heidelberg University. She is currently working on her doctoral dissertation at the University of Vienna on the topic of Yuma Mundhum—an ethnographic study of the oral textual traditions surrounding the Limbu grandmother deity Yuma. Her research interests lie in the anthropology of written and oral texts, religion and ritual, and critical studies of ethnicity in the context of Nepal. At the Research Project, she is editing documents on the history of eastern Nepal and documents that shed light on the construction of ethnicity and the relationships between the local population and the state.

The Research Project warmly bids farewell to Dr. Simon Cubelic, who was appointed Deputy Head of the South Asia Department at the Library of the Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies (CATS) in June 2024. Simon Cubelic has been a valued colleague of ours as a research associate since the Research Project was founded in 2014. In addition, he has served as a research librarian at the CATS Library since 2020. Simon will remain connected to the Research Project as an associate member in his new role. We sincerely thank Simon for his many years of service, congratulate him on his new position, and wish him all the best for his future career.

On May 27 and 28, 2024, the Research Project, in collaboration with the Nepal Heritage Documentation Project (Heidelberg Center for Transcultural Studies, Heidelberg Academy of Sciences), organized a conference that examined Nepal’s transcultural relations with its neighbors India, China, and Tibet, while also honoring Axel Michaels on the occasion of his 75th birthday. By addressing the theme of transculturality in the Nepalese context, the conference shed light on a central theme in Prof. Michaels’ scholarly work.

Four panels brought together presentations on topics that examined historical and contemporary transregional relationships and dynamics, global interconnections, and the crossing of boundaries in the realms of material culture, religion, and social relations. The keynote address, “A yam or a sausage? Elastic boundaries, internal exotica, and other features in the slow coagulation of a nation,” by Prof. Charles Ramble, critically examined King Pṛthvīnārāyaṇa Śāha’s image of Nepal as a “yam root between two rocks” and provocatively contrasted it with the sausage as an alternative metaphor for Nepal’s nation-building.

The conference concluded with a presentation of Prof. Michaels’ newly published book, *Nepal: A History from the Earliest Times to the Present* (Oxford University Press, 2024), which was introduced by Prof. David Gellner.

DOCUMENTA NEPALICA VOL. 7   

Khatiwoda, Rajan. Homicide Law in 19th-Century Nepal: A Study of the Mulukī Ains and Legal Documents. Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, 2024 (Documenta Nepalica: Book Series, Vol. 7). https://doi.org/10.17885/heiup.1276

On March 9, 2024, Dr. Manik Bajracharya gave a lecture as part of a conference on the origins and development of Newar Buddhism at the University of California, Berkeley. The title of his lecture was: “Royal Patronage of the Cult of Bungama-Lokeshvara under King Srinivasa Malla.”

On March 10, 2024, Dr. Bajracharya led a workshop during the same conference on the digital infrastructures of Documenta Nepalica and the NHDP.

On February 19, 2024, Dr. Manik Bajracharya delivered a lecture as part of the Joseph C. Miller Memorial Lecture Series at the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies at the University of Bonn. The title of his lecture was: “Slavery in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Nepal.”

The lecture addressed slavery and other forms of bonded labor in 18th- and 19th-century Nepal, examining their typology, the role of slaves in the social order, and the processes of enslavement and emancipation.

On February 9, 2024, Prof. Axel Michaels gave a lecture at the Heidelberg Museum of Ethnology on the topic “The Wars Between Nepal and China/Tibet: Who Won Them?”

In his lecture, Prof. Michaels untangled the complex web of political dynamics and twists and turns of the wars to shed light on their unexpected conclusion, marked by both sides’ paradoxical claims to victory.

At the 2023 Academies' Day, held on November 7, 2023, and dedicated to the theme “What Is Justice? – Concepts of Justice in a Global Comparison,” the Research Center had a booth on the history of slavery and the caste system in Nepal. For more information about the event, click here.

Documenta Nepalica Vol. 4

Wegner, Gert-Matthias, Drumming in Bhaktapur: Music of the Newar People of Nepal, Volume I: Text, Volume II: Transcriptions, Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, 2023 (Documenta Nepalica – Book Series, Vol. 4), DOI: https://doi.org/10.17885/heiup.1246.

As part of the project “Postcolonial Restitution in the Digital Age: Archiving and Contextualizing a Private Collection of Nepalese Manuscripts,” conservators Mark Barnard and Kumiko Matsuoka visited the research project in September 2023 to work on the conservation of medieval palm-leaf scrolls from a private collection. The previous year, Kumiko Matsuoka and Naoko Takagi had come to Heidelberg for a pilot study. During both visits, a total of 465 palm-leaf scrolls were opened, scanned, and conserved.

Members of the research project, in collaboration with the Nepal Heritage Documentation Project, organized the panel “Stasis and Motion in the Processional Culture of the Kathmandu Valley: The Buṅgadyaḥ Yātrā Revisited” at the 27th European Conference for South Asian Studies (ECSAS) in Turin in July 2023. The panel, chaired by Manik Bajracharya, Christiane Brosius, and Rajan Khatiwoda, featured presentations by David Andolfatto, Simon Cubelic, Rajan Khatiwoda, Manik Bajracharya, Bruce Owens, Christiane Brosius, Monalisa Maharjan, and Bibek Basukala.

Effective April 1, 2023, Dr. Astrid Zotter will assume a permanent position as a research assistant in the “History of Culture and Religion in South Asia” department at the Institute for South Asian Studies at Heidelberg University. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Astrid for her many years of tireless dedication as deputy director of the research project and wish her all the best for her future career.

Project members Simon Cubelic and Astrid Zotter, together with Nina Mirnig (Austrian Academy of Sciences), organized the panel “Inscriptions as Social Artefacts: Revisiting South Asian Epigraphic Cultures” at the 34th German Oriental Studies Conference (September 12–17, 2022) at Freie Universität Berlin. The panel examined the diverse functions that inscriptions played in the construction of spaces, social identities, and political authority in South Asia. The panelists were Diwakar Acharya, Georg Berkemer, Simon Cubelic, Valerie Gillet, Timothy Lubin, Nina Mirnig, and Ingo Strauch.

In addition, Simon Cubelic and Astrid Zotter gave a joint presentation on the relationship between the state and foundations in 19th-century Nepal as part of the panel “Endowments Through the Millennia,” organized by Prof. Joachim Friedrich Quack. 

The project “Modeling Text Editions as Linked Data (edition2LD)” at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, led by Dieta Svoboda-Baas and Sabine Tittel, is funded as part of the NFDI Text+ consortium.  The project aims to use existing project data from the research center “Religious and Legal Historical Sources of Pre-Modern Nepal” to develop a workflow that maps editions as RDF triples using maximally automated processes and can be transferred to other projects.

The Research Project welcomes Marija Grujovska as a new member of staff, who will be pursuing her doctoral research as part of the project. Marija earned a B.A. in Ethnology from the University of Vienna and an M.A. in the Cultural and Religious History of South Asia from the University of Heidelberg.  In her dissertation project, Marija examines the administrative history of the Tripureśvara Mahādeva Temple in Kathmandu from its founding in the early 19th century to the present, combining archival and field research methods.    

A short profile of the Research Project is available here on the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities’ YouTube channel.

Documenta Nepalica Band 3

Bajracharya, Manik (Hrsg.), Slavery and Unfree Labour in Nepal: Documents from the 18th to Early 20th Century, Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, 2022 (Documenta Nepalica – Book Series, Vol. 3), DOI: 10.17885/heiup.1003.

Documenta Nepalica Band 5

Bijay Basukala, Niels Gutschow, Nutandhar Sharma, Patan-Vãbāhā : History and Inventory of a Newar Buddhist Monastery, Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, 2022 (Documenta Nepalica – Book Series, Vol. 5), DOI: 10.17885/heiup.1116.

The Institute of South Asian Studies (SAI) hosted a Nepal Day on July 21 and 22, 2022, to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the SAI’s branch office in Nepal and the 60th anniversary of the SAI.

The event began with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Heidelberg University and Tribhuvan University, represented by their respective rectors, Prof. Bernhard Eitel and Prof. Shiva Lal Bhusal. This was followed by welcoming remarks from Prof. Rahul Mukherji, Director of the SAI, Rector Prof. Bhusal, and Prof. Christiane Brosius. During the panel discussion “What Have We Learned from Nepal?”, Prof. Niels Gutschow and Prof. Axel Michaels reflected on their many years of research in Nepal.

Nepal Day also provided an opportunity to present ongoing research projects. These included the Nepal Heritage Documentation Project (presented by Rajan Khatiwoda and Bharat Maharjan), the research project “Religious and Legal Historical Sources of Pre-modern Nepal” at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences (presented by Dr. Manik Bajracharya and Dr. Astrid Zotter), “Urban Transformation and Placemaking” (presented by Prof. Christiane Brosius and Sujan Chitrakar), and “Himalyan Socio-Hydrology: Evidence from Nepal” (presented by Prof. Marcus Nüsser and Dr. Susanne Schmidt).

This was followed by presentations by Prof. Sagar Raj Sharma (Kathmandu University), titled “Dilemmas of a Nation in Transition,” which addressed Nepal’s socioeconomic and environmental challenges, and by Prof. Martin Gaenszle (University of Vienna) on “Ethnic Traditions and Global Archives: Changing Research Conditions in Nepal.” Prof. Gaenszle’s lecture highlighted the potential of digital archiving methods for ethnographic documentation and reflected on the associated challenges.

The Institute of South Asian Studies at Heidelberg University has maintained a branch office in Kathmandu for 35 years. As the Executive Director of the South Asia Institute, Prof. Dr. Rahul Mukherji, emphasizes, Nepal has become a focal point of Asian studies at Heidelberg University. “Nowhere else in the world is there such a concentration of disciplinary and region-specific expertise, research, and projects.”

Ute Hüsken, Vasudha Narayanan, Astrid Zotter (Hrsg.), Nine Nights of Power. Durgā, Dolls, and Darbārs, SUNY series in Hindu Studies, 2021, ISBN13: 978-1-4384-8407-5 (Available as a hardcover, Google eBook, and Kindle edition, see here).

Documenta Nepalica Band 2

Rajan Khatowoda, Simon Cubelic, Axel Michaels (Hrsg.), The Mulukī Ain of 1854. Nepal's First Legal Code, Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, 2021 (Documenta Nepalica – Book Series, Vol. 2), DOI: 10.17885/heiup.769.

As part of LREC 2022, the “Workshop on Resources and Technologies for Indigenous, Endangered, and Lesser-Resourced Languages in Eurasia (EURALI)” took place on June 20, 2022, in Marseille. Sabine Tittel presented her work on a place-name ontology for the Documenta Nepalica in the form of a poster and a talk titled “Towards an Ontology for Toponyms in Nepalese Historical Documents.”

As part of the lecture series “Asian Religions and the Politics of Heritage,” organized by the Institute of South Asian Studies & the Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies, the following lectures took place in June and July:

“Heritage Politics at the Paśupatinātha Temple in Nepal”,

Prof. Dr. Axel Michaels,

Thursday, June 24, 2021, 11:15 a.m., see here.

“Places of Value: Inscriptions as Valorisation Practices at Cultural Heritage Sites in the Kathmandu Valley,”

Dr. Simon Cubelic,

Thursday, July 8, 2021, 11:15 a.m., see here.

As part of the pilot project “Anthropology of Inscriptions: Memory and Cultural Heritage in the Public Sphere” (HCTS/Flagship Initiative “Transforming Cultural Heritage”), the first catalog entries of inscriptions from the Digital Archive of Nepalese Arts and Monuments (DANAM) have been successfully integrated into the Documenta Nepalica database. The dataset containing 137 inscriptions from approximately 60 monuments (marked with the identifier “NHDP”) can now be searched within the Documenta Nepalica catalog, which contains more than 60,000 entries from public and private archives in Nepal. In the future, new entries from the DANAM inscription catalog will be regularly transferred to the database. The transfer is part of efforts to link the databases of both projects and enables further interdisciplinary research on Nepal’s textual, art-historical, and intangible cultural heritage. The Documenta Nepalica catalog search can be accessed here.

On February 26, 2021, from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. CET, the virtual international symposium “The Digital Preservation of Asian Manuscripts and Documents” took place. The symposium was organized in collaboration with the Department of Digital Archiving and Research at Otani University in Kyoto. The program can be found via the link below.