Nepalī Traimāsika: This semi-academic journal has remained an important platform for Nepali
litterateurs, academics, historians, and socio-cultural commentators since 1959. Some of the early
outputs of well-known historians and social scientists working in the post-Rana Nepal were
published in the Nepalī Traimāsika, making this periodical the antecedent to academic journals
which came to be published from Nepal in later years. The trimonthly is published by the Madan
Puraskar Guthi, a Trust established in 1955, with the goal of “clearing every physical and mental
roadblock for the overall development of Nepali literature”. As the Guthi became more active, the
organization started publishing the Nepalī Traimāsika from the autumn of 1959 under the
editorship of Kamal Dixit (1929-2016). [Disambiguation: Though the name of the Madan Puraskar
Guthi appears similar to the Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya (MPP), and both are sister institutions,
they are two separate entities with different objectives]. The Nepalī Traimāsika publishes articles
and essays with scholarly rigor on various topics including the Nepali language, literature and
linguistics, as well as history and culture. It also serves as the official communication platform of
the Guthi. Though not formally closed, new issues of the Nepalī Traimāsika have not been
published since 2016. The proposed run of Nepalī Traimāsika provides an important corpus for
scholars in the humanities and social sciences to understand the Nepali cultural sphere and the
intelligentsia since the fall of the Rana regime in 1950 up to the political change of 1990 and Nepal
becoming a republic in 2006.
Pūrva Ṭāimsa: The weekly newspaper is published from Dharan, nearly 400 km east of the capital
Kathmandu. Dharan is a town in the sub-tropical, inner Tarai region, built over forest clearings
and populated mainly by those migrating from the eastern mid-hills and families of the British
Gurkhas. This beginning has lent a unique identity to the town which has since grown into a city
that continues to maintain its significance in economic, political and socio-cultural fronts for the
past 70 years. Dharan was also a crucial hub of the political protests during the 1990 People’s
Movement that brought an end to the Party-less Panchayat System and restoration of multiparty
democracy and constitutional monarchy in Nepal. The proposed run of Pūrva Ṭāimsa captures the
buildup of political activities that led to the Movement and the subsequent socio-political
developments in the half-decade after it.
Additionally, the contents published in the Pūrva Ṭāimsa are diverse and contain: (a) the latent
socio-political moods that subsequently gave rise to the Janajati Movements (movements by the
Indigenous Nationalities) in Nepal in the last decade of the XX century and the first decade of the
XXI century; (b) the activities of local political groups that rose to have impact across the country;
(c) writings by many local and national political leaders, activists and commentators; (d) Mr Giriraj
Acharya, the publisher and editor of the Pūrva Ṭāimsa, himself is a political activist of the liberal
democratic line, who has made substantial contribution through his writings and editorship of the
newspaper: (i) in the struggle against the Party-less Panchayat regime, (ii) by providing the
platform and mentoring an entire generation of journalists, writers and editors from the eastern
region, thus adding import to the proposed digital preservation of the periodical.
Since Pūrva Ṭāimsa is a publication from outside the Kathmandu Valley, it represents a voice
from the periphery, so to speak. This enhances the significance of the proposed work in the context
of Nepal where only the publications from the center thus far have been prioritized for archiving.
The purpose of this project is to digitize the issues (1-229) of trimonthly periodical titled “Nepalī
Traimāsika” and weekly newspaper titled “Pūrva Ṭāimsa” of the Year 1986 to 1995.
This proposal includes the cost of digitization and shipping cost of the copy to Chicago from
Kathmandu. The indexing of “Nepalī Traimāsika is also proposed. The need for indexing has
stemmed from the frequent search and demand for the contents of the periodical from scholars.