Gurung (exonym; ) or Tamu (endonym;

Gurung Gurung (exonym; ) or Tamu (endonym; Gurung: ) are an ethnic group indigenous to the hills and mountains of Gandaki Province of Nepal. Gurung people predominantly live around the Annapurna region in Manang, Mustang, Dolpo, Kaski, Lamjung, Gorkha, ...

: ) are an ethnic group indigenous to the hills and mountains of

Gandaki Province Gandaki Province ( ne, गण्डकी प्रदेश ) ), is one of the seven federal provinces established by the current constitution of Nepal which was promulgated on 20 September 2015. Pokhara is the province's capital city. It borde ...

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...

. Gurung people predominantly live around the Annapurna region in

Manang Manang ( ne, मनाङ) is a town in the Manang District of Nepal. It is located at 28°40'0N 84°1'0E with an elevation of . According to the preliminary result of the 2011 Nepal census it has a population of 6,527 people living in 1,495 indiv ...

Mustang The mustang is a free-roaming horse of the Western United States, descended from horses brought to the Americas by the Spanish. Mustangs are often referred to as wild horses, but because they are descended from once-domesticated animals, they ...

Dolpo Dolpo ( bo, དོལ་པོ ) is a high-altitude culturally Tibetan region in the upper part of the Dolpa District of western Nepal, bordered in the north by China.. Part of the region lies in Shey Phoksundo National Park. The sparse, agro ...

, Kaski,

Lamjung Lamjung District ( ne, लमजुङ जिल्ला ), a part of Gandaki Province, is one of the 77 districts of Nepal. The district, with Besisahar as its district headquarters, covers an area of and had a population of 167,724. Lamjun ...

Gorkha The Gurkhas or Gorkhas (), with endonym Gorkhali ), are soldiers native to the Indian Subcontinent, chiefly residing within Nepal and some parts of Northeast India. The Gurkha units are composed of Nepalis and Indian Gorkhas and are recruit ...

Parbat Parbat District ( ne, पर्वत जिल्ला , is a hilly area of Nepal. It is a part of Gandaki Province and one of the seventy-seven districts of Nepal. The district, with Kusma as its district headquarters, covers an area of and ...

and

Syangja Syangja District ( ne, स्याङ्जा जिल्ला; ), a part of Gandaki Province, is one of the seventy-seven districts of Nepal. The district, with Syangja bazaar (a small town) as its district headquarters, covers an area o ...

districts of Nepal. They are one of the main

Gurkha The Gurkhas or Gorkhas (), with endonym Gorkhali ), are soldiers native to the Indian Subcontinent, chiefly residing within Nepal and some parts of Northeast India. The Gurkha units are composed of Nepalis and Indian Gorkhas and are recruit ...

tribes. They are also scattered across India in

Sikkim Sikkim (; ) is a state in Northeastern India. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China in the north and northeast, Bhutan in the east, Province No. 1 of Nepal in the west and West Bengal in the south. Sikkim is also close to the Siligur ...

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...

( Darjeeling area) and other regions with a predominant Nepali diaspora population. They speak the Sino-Tibetan

Gurung language Gurung (Devanagari: ), also known as Tamu Kyi (, ; Tibetan: ) or Tamu Bhaasaa (, ), is a language spoken by the Gurung people of Nepal. The total number of all Gurung speakers in Nepal was 227,918 in 1991 and 325,622 in 2011. The official langua ...

and practice

Bon ''Bon'', also spelled Bön () and also known as Yungdrung Bon (, "eternal Bon"), is a Tibetan religious tradition with many similarities to Tibetan Buddhism and also many unique features.Samuel 2012, pp. 220-221. Bon initially developed in t ...

religion alongside

Tibetan Buddhism Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...

and

Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...

Gurung caste

The Tibetan societies from which the Gurungs came had no caste system and within themselves. Yet for several centuries the Gurungs and other hill peoples have been mixing with the caste cultures of Aryan and they have been influenced by them in various ways. As a result, Gurung caste system has been fragmented into two parts: the four-caste (''Songhi/ Char-jat'') and sixteen-caste (''Kuhgi/ Sora-jat'') systems. Within there are more than thirty named clans.

Geographical distribution

Nepál - z výstavního souboru Manang (1979)

At the time of the

2011 Nepal census Nepal conducted a widespread national census in 2011 by the Nepal Central Bureau of Statistics. Working with the 58 municipalities and the 3915 Village Development Committees at a district level, they recorded data from all the municipalities an ...

, 522,641 people (2.0% of the population of Nepal) identified as Gurung. The frequency of the Gurung people was higher than national average in the following districts:

(52.4%),

(31.3%),

(21.4%),

(16.7%), Kaski (16.6%), Tanahun (11.5%),

(9.0%),

Dolpa Dolpa District ( ne, :ne:डोल्पा जिल्ला, डोल्पा जिल्ला), is a district, located in Karnali Province of Nepal, It is one of the seventy-seven districts of Nepal and one of ten district of Karnali. Th ...

(7.1%),

Chitwan Chitwan District (, , ) is one of 77 districts of Nepal, and takes up the southwestern corner of Bagmati Province. Bharatpur, largest city of Nepal after Kathmandu, is its administrative centre. It covers . In 2011 it had a population of 579 ...

(6.8%),

Dhading Dhading Besi ( ne, धादिङ्ग बेसी) is a town (neighborhood) and the district headquarter of the Dhading District of Nepal. The town is located within Nilkantha Municipality. It is also administrative centre of Nilkantha Munic ...

(5.5%),

Sankhuwasabha Sankhuwasabha District ( ne, सङ्खुवासभा जिल्ला ) is one of 14 districts of Province No. 1 of eastern Nepal. The district's area is 3,480 km2 with a population of 159,203 in 2001 and 158,742 in 2011. ...

(5.4%),

Taplejung Taplejung District ( ne, ताप्लेजुङ जिल्ला ) is one of 77 districts of Nepal and one of the 14 districts of Province No. 1. It is remotely located in the Himalayas in Eastern Nepal with Tibet to the north across the ...

(4.6%),

(3.7%),

Rasuwa Rasuwa District ( ne, रसुवा जिल्ला is one of 13 districts of Bagmati Province and one of seventy-seven districts of Nepal. The district, with Dhunche as its district headquarters, covers an area of and has a population (2 ...

(3.1%), Tehrathum (2.9%), Ilam (2.9%),

Kathmandu , pushpin_map = Nepal Bagmati Province#Nepal#Asia , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = Bagmati Prov ...

(2.6%),

Nawalparasi Nawalparasi District ( ne, नवलपरासी जिल्ला, ), part of which belongs to Gandaki Province and part to Lumbini Province, was one of the seventy-five districts of Nepal before being divided into Nawalparasi (West of Ba ...

(2.4%) and

Rupandehi Rupandehi District ( ne, रुपन्देही जिल्ला; ), a part of Lumbini Province, is one of the seventy-seven districts of Nepal and covers an area of . The district headquarter is Bhairahawa. As per the national census 2011 ...

(2.0%).

Religion

The Gurung Dharma include Bon Lam (Lama), Ghyabri (Ghyabring) and Pachyu (Paju). Lamas perform Buddhist rituals as needed, such as in birth, funeral, other family rituals (such as in Domang, Tharchang) and in Lhosar. Lamas perform Buddhist ceremonies primarily in Manang, Mustang, and elsewhere. Some Gurung villages have kept remnants of a pre-Buddhist form of the ‘Bon' religion, which flourished over two thousand years ago across much of Tibet and Western China. They've also kept aspects of an even older shamanic belief system that served as a counter to the Bon religion.''Macfarlane, A. 1976. Resources and Population: A Study of the Gurungs of Nepa1. New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press Cambridge, London''.

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Buddhist communities of Nepal Ethnic groups in Nepal Ethnic groups in Northeast India Ethnic groups in South Asia Gurkhas Indigenous peoples of Nepal Social groups of Nepal Buddhist communities of India

Gurung caste

Geographical distribution

Religion

See also

References

Further reading

External links