About patan

The city of Patan is believed to have been built in the third century B.C. by the Kirat dynasty. It was expanded by Lichhavis in the 6th century A.D. and again by the Mallas in medieval period. The Malla kings ruled the Kathmandu Valley until the ascension of the Shah dynasty. In 1768, King Prithvi Narayan Shah began his campaign to unify Nepal and Patan became a city in the kingdom of Nepal. Both the Buddha and the emperor Ashoka are supposed to have visited the valley. There are various monuments and inscriptions that prove its antiquity, namely the four Ashok stupas at the perimeters of the city which have been erected by the great Buddhist emperor Ashoka around 250 BC.
Most of the well preserved and celebrated architecture of Patan dates back to the latter half of the Malla rule. These are at Imadol in the East, Ibahi in the North, Lagankhel in the South and Pulchowk in the West. These are in the old tradition of the stupa being a hemispherical mound of earth covered with grass. In later times, adornments have been carried out but these are still among the simplest stupas in the valley. The city of Lalitpur, to the South of the Bagmati River has three names – Patan, Lalitpur and Yala. Patan is the most commonly used name but the formal name of the city and the district is Lalitpur, which means beautiful city. Patan may be an abbreviation of the ancient name of the city Lalitapattana while Yala is the Newari name for the city. The name ‘Yala’ could be a derivation of Yupagrama, which means ‘village of the sacred pillar.’ Yala was the largest of the villages combined to form the city of Lalitpur.