Pithoragarh: Uttarakhand scholars on Sunday cited scriptures and books written before Independence that showed Kalapani as the source of Kali river, a key factor in Indian claim to areas Nepal has now incorporated in its own map.
The new Nepal map lays claim over Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura which India maintains are on its side of the border.
Kali is recognised as the border by both sides, but Nepal has contested that its source is the Kalapani area.
Nepalese commentators have argued the real source of Kali river, or Mahakali, is the Kuti-Yangti rivulet which originates in Limpiyadhura, a claim that allows Nepal extra territory in the region.
VDS Negi, a professor of history, SS Jeena campus, Kumaon University in Almora, cited Manas Khanda of the Skanda Purana, which has a reference to Kali river, known as Shyama in ancient times. “Shloka number 2 of chapter 117 of Manas Khanda of Skanda Purana says the origin of ‘Shyama’ or Kali river is from ‘Lipi Parvat’ or Lipulekh hill,” Negi said.
“Manas Khanda of Skanda Purana was compiled in the latter half of the 12th century, centuries before the treaty of Sagauli was signed,” he said, referring to the 1816 border agreement between Nepal and British India.
British travellers to Tibet before India’s independence and Indian scholars writing on Kailash-Mansarovar have also cited Kalapani the origin of river Kali, Negi said.
He said Charles A Sheering, a British traveller and administrator who visited Tibet in 1905, also wrote in his book "Western Tibet and the British Borderland" that Kalapani is considered the original source of Kali river.
Quoting the book, Negi said over half a dozen small springs combine to form the source of Kali.
He referred to Swami Pranavananda, an explorer-saint whose 1949 book on Kailash-Mansarovar described Kalapani as the traditional source of river Kali.
Meanwhile, local land records say the land at Kalapani and Lipulekh belongs to the residents of two villages on the Indian side of the border, an official said. “All the land in Lipulekh, Kalapani and Nabhidhang on the Indo-Nepal border traditionally belongs to residents of Garbiyang and Gunji villages of Dharchula sub-division of Pithoragarh,” Dharchula SDM AK Shukla said.
