Anyone who is more than casually acquainted with Nepal will be able to testify how difficult it is to grasp what exactly constitutes being a Nepali. There are Nepalis whose looks would place them among Europeans while there are others whose looks would have them quite at home with Innuits, and in between are the million of others whose looks are indeterminate. It is not only in physiognomy that the diversity of Nepalis becomes evident. It is for reasons far more fundamental that Nepal lives upto its appellation of being the "melting pot of Asia" .
Nepal is one country which saw the meeting up of Asia' great migrations- that of the Aryan, and of the Mongolian peoples. There was an influx of these two peoples mainly from two directions of the Nepali hills. From the northeast came the Mongolians in their continuous sweep down from their cold grasslands of Mongolia across the breadth of Asia and into the Subcontinent of South Asia. They continued moving steadily westward until they met the other great migration from the west - the Aryans on a march that began in the Central Asian Steppes.
For, just as there are so many kinds of Nepali faces, there are as many traditions that go a long time back into history. This is a result of centuries of internal migration along with ongoing arrival of people from both north and south. At one level, the diverse religious beliefs of Nepalis echo this variedness. There are communities whose shamanistic way of life is no different from those of Mongolian nomads, while there are others whose scruple in following the Manu Dharma (the Hindu canon dealing with the way of life) would seem admirable to even the most orthodox South Indian Brahmin. Buddhists come seeking an uncorrupted religion as practised for more than a millennium high up in the mountains, while there are those that come to marvel at the syncretism of Buddhism and Hinduism in the inner cities of the Kathmandu valley.
These numerous religious practices, of course, are only one of the indicators of Nepal's claim to a rich heritage. Diversity goes much deeper than that. No cultural tradition is the same in different parts of the country. Even people of the same community, although they share the same outward characteristics will have evolved their own culture depending on where they live.
It is all these differences and variety that has contributed to the entity that is Nepali. Outward differences there may be many, but there is no underlying strain that is stronger than that comes of being a Nepali.
