HISTORY OF KIRTIPUR

 Kirtipur was one of the four kingdoms inside the Kathmandu valley. The kingdom of Kirtipur was last ruled by King Gyan Praja MaIla. King Prithivi Narayan Shah and his soldiers had suffered defeat twice from Kirtipur during the unification campaign of Nepal. During one of the battles, it is said, one of the soldiers from the kingdom of Kirtipur had almost killed King Prithivi Narayan Shah. The fellow soldiers telling him that a soldier should not kill a king in battlefield kept the soldier from taking the life of the Shah king. In 1820 BS, the last ruler of Kirtipur King Gyan Praja Melia and Queen Kirti Laxmi Melia were, however, slaughtered by the soldiers of King Prithivi Narayan Shah. Angered that his troops were defeated twice in the battlefield, the Shah king had also ordered his soldiers to cut off the nose of the male inhabitants of Kirtipur.