ABSTRACT
From the very beginning of their history in Nepal, Theravada and modernity have been inextricably connected. Similarly, "Theravada", the key term of Buddhist Nepalese modernity, may be interrogated in terms of what it allows and precludes. The emergence of Theravada in Nepal began in the Bengal of the 1920s with the activist work of a Newar commerce student Jagat Man Vaidya, better known as Dharmaditya Dharmacarya, from the Buddhist Shakya caste. The study of Nepalese Theravada suggests that there are good reasons for getting rid of the idea of a unified Theravada bloc. Arguably one of the most impressive text projects of an emerging Nepalese Theravada is the ongoing Pali-Newar Tipitaka translation, almost single-handedly conducted by Dunda Bahadur Vajracarya, a Lalitpur-based trader in precious metals. Certainly, the establishment of libraries with focus on Pali, Sri Lankan, Southeast Asian, and modernist Indian Buddhism, either by communities or individuals, represent a major community effort in a country.
