People have demand that the government should announce national holiday on the birth anniversary date of King Prithvi Narayan Shah, who unified Nepal out of various fringe states some 245 years ago. Until 2008, before Nepal was declared a republic, Shah’s birthday (Poush 27) was celebrated as National Unity Day or Prithvi Jayanti.According to nepali calendar Prithvi Narayan Shah was born on 27th Poush, 1779 BS (11 January 1723 AD) in Gorkha district and was declared a king 20 years later. Nepal was divided into several minor states then, it was the same king who started the great initiation of unification of the states and make it a single sovereign country- Nepal. That makes him the first king under the Shah dynasty, who had the dream of greater and modern Nepal. By his movements, Nepal at that time extended from the Punjab to Sikkim and was almost twice as large in land area as it is today. He was a great diplomat, and his ‘Divya Upadesh’, the statements of principle governance, nationalism, and foreign policy were followed by many leaders later. His monarchy lasted for more than 200 years, till the kingship was uprooted by the people’s movement in 2006 AD.
