Nepal is a country with a ritual tradition that is accumulative to such an extent that it indeed sometimes seems as if each and every trend that once entered the Valley of Kathmandu has been preserved and readily absorbed into the already existing body of observances without a commensurate loss. Added to this capacity of absorption a considerable indigenous creativity must be assumed for giving shape to a ritual calendar in which hardly a day can pass without particular observances. The degree of Newar originality is subject to discussion, with some scholars holding that almost every indigenous conception has at one or other time found its origin in prevalent Indian currents of thought and expression. Others, and not in the last place local scholars, have maintained that the bulk of tradition has acquired its distinctive features in Nepal itself, as a result of the rich imagination and refinement of the Valley's millennia-old civilisation. It is a question which to a large extent depends on the reconstruction of a sometimes indefinite past and as such will not bother us in this article.
