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Surkhet
History
The name Surkhet in Nepalese means 'The fertile land of the gods'. It is believed that the Surkhet Valley in the past was a lake. A legend has it that a god (Hinduism has 330 Million Gods) one day decided to drain water out of the lake. So, he took his sword and with it cut a narrow gap in the southern lip of the lake. That place today is called Nikas. After all the water drained out of the lake, the fertile arable flat land was available for people to use. They thought of this new fertile land as a gift from the god and therefore called it Surkhet (Sur = God, Khet = fertile arable land).Enough of the legend, now let's take a look at the historical view of Surkhet. Around the 12th Century, the Khasa Kingdom spread across the Mid-Western region of Nepal. Surkhet and Dailekh were part of the kingdom that served as the route that linked the Gangetic Plain to the Western Tibet and ultimately to the Silk Route. This is the place where the current Nepalese language and script (Devanagari Script) are thought to have originated from. After the 14th century the Khasa Kingdom split into 22 smaller kingdoms known in Nepalese as 'Baise Rajya'. Baise Rajya together with Chaubise Rajya (24 kingdoms) were in the 18th century unified by Prithivi Narayan Shah to form Nepal. His family dynasty ruled Nepal till May of 2008. Excavations have revealed the site of Kakrebihar (Surkhet Valley) and Dullu (Dailekh) to be in good condition.
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