Nepal
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Glasgow Museums has a collection of 114 objects from Nepal and a further two from Bhutan. These date from 1877 to 2001. This collection comprises weapons, coins, religious and domestic items, costume, paintings, souvenirs, amulets, charms and paper samples. Most of these items come from British military personnel or missionaries. Weapons, particularly those associated with the Ghurkhas, predominate, with the earliest acquisition being a Ghurkha kukri, or knife, donated by John Napier in 1877. Other military items include Ghurkha caps and a bullet mould. Also prevalent are religious items, including figures, ritual equipment and brass temple apparatus. An object of particular interest is a Ramayana manuscript, hand copied in 1860 and donated as part of the collection of the Rev. James Thomson in 1940. The largest assemblage, of 17 domestic objects, was acquired from John Innes Wright in 1897 and 1903. A more recent acquisition is a collection of Nepalese costumes and textiles collected between 1964 and 1981 by the donor Moira Gentles, while teaching at Kalimpong Girls’ High School, Darjeeling. Nepal is a secular state and democratic republic, which shares its border with China and India and boasts eight of the world’s ten highest mountains, including Mount Everest, which lies on its border with Tibet.
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