The Gurung is an ethnic group from the Central region of Nepal. They live primarily in West Nepal’s Gandaki zone, specifically Lamjung, Kaski, Tanahu, Gorkha, Parbat and Syangja districts as well as the Manang district around the Annapurna mountain range. Some live in the Baglung, Okhaldhunga and Taplejung districts and Machhapuchhre as well. Small numbers are believed to be living in Sikkim, Bhutan and India's West Bengal.

There are 686,000 Gurung (Τamu) (2.39% of Nepal's total population) of which 338,925 speak Gurung language

Origins

Gurungs are ethnic Tibetan. Recent, DNA studies have indicated their origin to Tibet. The ancient tamu(gurung) tradition known as "Pye-tan-lyu-tan" ...is preserved history of tamu (gurung,)many believe the 'Pye-tan-lyu-tan' states that the Gurung originated from Tibet. Gurung means "personal guard" in Tibetan. Gurung Shamanism tradition is similar to natives in Tibet, Siberia and Mongolia.^{[citation needed]}However the crazy adept and spiritual master Lord Sri Akshunna who was born into gurung family of Guru Baaje holding the terma of pye tan lyu tan (Gurung Dharma) says actually Gurung came from the area of Tan Tise Gurung Gu-tzeg which is the local name for Mt.Kailash. But from there they descended into annapurna region of Nepal via muktinath area and settled into gandak region.This is also verified by the very ancient siddha route to Kailash and Mansarowar from Nepal via Muktinath

History

Gandaki District, Kaski Zone

History of Gurungs

In 1958, Bernard Pignede, a French student of anthropology came to Nepal to study about Gurungs. He spent seven months in a Gurung village Mohoriya (Kaski, Gandaki) and traveled through many neighboring Gurung villages to do his research. He learned to speak tamu-kuwei (gurung dialect) and documented pretty much everything about the gurungs — their social structure, culture, religion, history, occupations, legends and myths. He translated pae, a ritual and religious practice that one Gurung generation has passed down to another for thousands of years. Pae conveys the oral history of Gurungs and is considered very sacred. Unfortunately, Pignede died in 1961 at age of 29. After his death, Professor Louis Dumont published Pignede’s work in 1966. The book was immediately recognized as a major contribution to the anthropology of the Himalayas. Later, two noted anthropologists — Sarah Harrison and Alan Macfarlane ^[3] translated it into English and published the first English version in 1993. Harrison and Macfarlane did further study of Gurungs and added more to Pignede's work. The English version of the book is titled The Gurungs, which is probably the most acclaimed research on Gurungs so far.

Early History

The Tamu (Gurung) Pye refers to the very beginning of civilization, more than eight or nine thousand years ago. They tell the origin of human beings and of the materials that they used. Tamu Priests still use some of these primitive utensils in their rituals. The Pye do not seem to have changed substantially over time.

They refer to the ancestors of the Tamu, their Aji-khe (Khe-ku, nine male ancestors), Aji-ma (Ma-i, seven female ancestors), and Aba Kara Klye, spiritual master, lords, ghosts etc. Tamu Pye tells how the first people lived in Cho ("Tso", which means lake in Tibetan) Nasa, a lakeside village, where they planted the first grain, barley. Then they dispersed to other places such as Sa Nasa, Dwo Nasa, Si Nasa and Kro Nasa, the latter being in the south, hot and fertile. Later the northern Cho Nasa was rich in religious activity, speaking Tamu-Kwyi. Other Tamu villages developed according to their proximity to the northern and southern ends. There are also stories about the discovery of fire, how the drum was first made, and many other things in the Pye.

The ancestors of the Tamu, Ma-i and Khe-ku, seem to have been represented as seven lakes (the former) and nine mountain peaks (the latter). There is a traditional assumption that Cho Nasa, as described in the Pye-ta Lhu-ta, lay in western Tibet, and was ringed by seven lakes and surrounded by three mountain ranges. To the south, in Xinjiang in Western China, north of Tibet, in the Turfan Depression, lay Kro Nasa. Large lakes are called nuur in Tibetan, nor in Western China, and tso(cho) in Tibet. In Tamu tradition, as they migrated from one site to another, they would call the new site by the old name if it was similar in aspect. Tamu Pye tells that the soul of a dead person is believed to go first to Koko-limar-tso, which is under water. In the Qinghai region of China lies a huge lake with an island in the middle called Koko Nor ( or Ching Hai). It is similar to Hara Usa Nuur (one of the seven lakes) of western Mongolia, and some near-by places have names which end in "chow", conceivably derived from the Cho Nasa of almost six or seven thousand years ago, described in Tamu Pye. Similarly Sa Nasa, Two Nasa, Si Nasa and kro Nasa could be placed in the Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan regions of China respectively, running southward to tibet and then Nepal.