Muluki Ain translated into English

Vajra Publications, a Kathmandu-based top publishing house, has published the English version of Muluki Ain 1854, the law code with constitutional features drafted at the initiative of Prime Minister Janga Bahadur Rana—is a fundamental legal text from modern Nepal. The Muluki Ain was jointly translated by Rajan Khatiwada, Simon Cublic and Axel Michaels.

Patrick Olivelle, Professor Emeritus, University of Texas at Austan says: “The publication, a complete translation of the Nepali code, the Muluki AIn, is indeed a milestone in modern scholarship into traditional South Asian laws, especially the law encoded in the Sanskrit Dharmsastras.”  

According to him, there has been a long-standing debate whether the laws spelled out in these ancient codes were purely theoretical constructs that constituted the law of the land and actually applied in the courts of law.

The Muluki Ain of 1854—the law code with constitutional features drafted at the initiative of Prime Minister Janga Bahadur Rana—is the foundational legal text for modern Nepal. It covers almost every aspect of public, criminal, private and religious law, ranging from the organization of the state and courts to murder and other delicts, the workings of the caste system and the joint family, matters of purity and penance, customary law, widow-burning and witchcraft. As such, the Muluki Ain is a unique source not only for the political, social and economic life of 19th-century Nepal, but also for the place of traditional Hindu jurisprudence in South Asian legal cultures.