Arimalla

Arimalla or Ari Deva (reigned 1200-16) was the first king of the Malla dynasty in Nepal.

Beginning in the early twelfth century, leading notables in Nepal began to appear with names ending in the term malla, (wrestler in Sanskrit), indicating a person of great strength and power. According to the legends Ari Malla was a pioneer figure in wrestling and the title Malla was thus made hereditary by the king to his descendants. Arimalla was the first king to be so called, and the practice of adopting such a name was followed regularly by rulers in Nepal until the eighteenth century. (The names of the Malla kings were also represented as, for example, Ari Malla.) This long Malla period witnessed the continued importance of the Kathmandu Valley as a political, cultural, and economic center of Nepal. Other areas also began to emerge as significant centers in their own right, increasingly connected to the Kathmandu Valley.

References

• Library of Congress