Baitadi District

Baitadi District, historical name “Bairath” (बैराथ), a part of Sudurpashchim Province, is one of the 77 districts of Nepal. It is a Hill district. Baitadi, with Dasharathchand as its headquarters, covers an area of and has a population of 250,898 according to the census (2011). The Baitadi district entails 56 village development councils (VDCs) and two municipality in the past. Now, by federal policy there are 10 local units; 4 Municipalities (Dashrath Chand, Patan, Melauli and Purchudi) and 6 Rural Municipalities ( Surnaya, Sigas, Shivnath, Pancheshwor, Dogada Kedar and Dilasaini). Baitadi falls into the farthest western regional district of Nepal touching Jhulaghat, India, Nepal's neighboring country, to its border. History Baitadi was part of the Kumaon Kingdom until the Gorkha invasion of Kumaon in 1791. The region was once a part of the Great Katyuri's kingdom. After the fall of that kingdom, around the 10th century, Khasa King Ashok Challa of Sapadalaksh (Karnali Zone or Dullu, Dailekh) seized most of that part of the Katyuri Kingdom, including Baitadi. During the Khas kingdom, Baitadi was one of three major centres. The others were Kamadesh (Kali Kumaun) and Kedarbhumi (Garhwal) in the Central Himalayas. According to the historical folk-tales in Baitadi, it was one of the Chand Kings who fought with the Khas king and established a sovereign state for the Chand dynasty in Baitadi. These tales resembled a historical story of the establishment of Kumaun Kingdom. One of the view of the historians of Uttarakhand, a state in India, Nepal's neighboring country, suggest that it was Thohar Chand who was responsible for establishing the Chand dynasty in Kali-Kumaun. He then changed his name to Abhai Chand after he became a King. Badri Dutt Pandey, in a history of Kumaun, quoted the following story about the history of Kumaun. Gyan Chand (1376 A.D) was the first ruler of the Chand Dynasty of Champawat who was part of the third generation from Thohar Chand or Abhai Chand. Gyan Chand's grandfather, Trilok Chand, and his father, Kalyan Chand, were rulers of Baitadi, according to the folk tales. The kings who ruled in Baitadi were: