Yogmaya Neupane is not a name found in mainstream reports Nepali Story. She was born during the repressive Ranas regime and led a very unconventional life for a woman in Nepal at the beginning of the 20th century. She married again (possibly twice), then renounced the world for asceticism and requested the authorities to establish a Dharmarajya. In 1941, Yogmaya and more than 60 of her disciples drowned in the Arun River as a Jal Samadhi in protest against the Rana government’s refusal to fulfill its reform promise.
However, Michael Hutt, professor of Nepali and Himalayan studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, says this incident is not mentioned at all in the published history of Nepal. In fact, Yogmaya’s life and commitment were long forgotten, so her story became a kind of myth. Hutt argues that some rebellions fall victim to “censored memory” due to unfavorable socio-political realities that still uphold the values that the almost-forgotten rebellion seeks to fight against. The story of Yogmaya Neupane is an example of this. She has been fighting against it for almost sixty years sati, Caste discriminationand the power structures of Brahmins and landlords were forgotten.
The life and story of a rebellious ascetic
In 2011, Hutt visited the Bhojpur district of Nepal, where Yogmaya was born. Her descendants claim that they can place her in the bloodline of her ancestors. If there is such concrete evidence of their existence, how could their story be forgotten and how was it later remembered? Before answering that, let’s take a look at the life of Yogmaya Neupane. She was born sometime between 1860 and 1868 in a Brahmin family to the couple Shrilal Upadhyaya Neupane and Chandrakala Neupane. She was the eldest child and only daughter of three children. Her parents married her off to a Koirala boy aged between 5 and 9 years. (The many uncertainties about her biographical facts only remind us of the long period during which her story was forgotten and became almost a folk tale).
Source: Purbeli News
Shortly after marriage, her husband died and she was mistreated by her in-laws, who blamed her for her son’s death and considered her unfavorable. After several years there, she returned to her maternal home. While staying in her hometown, she fell in love with a Brahmin and fled with him to Assam. After his death, she is said to have married another man, with whom she had a daughter named Nainakala.
Between 1903 and 1916 she returned to her home district of Bhojpur with her daughter. During this period, Yogmaya renounced all worldly pleasures and devoted himself to asceticism. She set up an ashram in Majhuwabeshi village. Her practice was rigorous and she meditated for hours, sometimes abstaining from food. She shaved her head and wore a single piece of cloth around her body. Soon people heard about her powers and a group of followers and disciples gathered there, mostly including young widows, freed slaves, etc Dalits.
As a political revolutionary, she demanded Dharmarajya and sent one of her disciples, Prem Narayan Bhandari, to Kathmandu to preach her ideas. During several visits between 1929 and 1936 the government reassured them, but nothing changed. Later in 1936, Yogmaya herself traveled to Kathmandu, met Prime Minister Juddha Shumsher Rana and submitted a 24-point objection outlining her reform proposals. The reforms she proposed criticized the state of society and the lack of Dharma.
As a political revolutionary, she demanded Dharmarajya and sent one of her disciples, Prem Narayan Bhandari, to Kathmandu to preach her ideas.
She asked Juddha Shumsher for “the alms of the holy order of truth and justice.” In 1938, realizing that nothing was being done, Yogmaya, along with 240 of her disciples, hatched a plan to self-immolate. To prevent this, the district governor sent soldiers; Yogmaya and many men and women were arrested. She was released a few months later. Three years later, she planned a Jal Samadhi with fewer students, during which Yogmaya and 67 of her students drowned in the Arun River.
Yogmaya’s efforts for social reform
Her life story shows that she was a rebel against the social injustices of the time: she was against it Sati and urged the government to ban it, she supported widow remarriage, she renounced her Brahmin status and welcomed people from all walks of life as her disciples. She also founded the first Nari Samiti in Nepal. Nari Samiti was a non-violent movement against discriminatory practices against women Child marriage.
Nepalese postage stamp commemorating Yogmaya. Source: CollectorBazar
For Yogmaya, religion was very important and in fact she saw it as the solution to the problems around her. With this in mind, she wrote poems which her daughter Nainakala recited to Prem Narayan, who then wrote them down. This collection of poems is called Sarvartha Yogabani. Tina Sreshtha divides the Yogabani into four categories based on the themes it deals with: While there are devotional verses, there are also verses that speak of the exploitation of the poor, those that denounce Rana rule and call for the introduction of Dharmarajya. This political-religious text condemns the corruption of Brahmins, moneylenders and landowners and hence the Rana government tried to have it destroyed before its publication in Assam.
The rediscovery of a revolutionary
How was this buried story of Yogmaya Neupane discovered and reclaimed by Nepali feminists and revolutionaries? National narratives tend to suppress counter-narratives that challenge them. In this case, American anthropologist Barbara Nimri Aziz discovered the story of Yogmaya in the 1980s. Aziz then told the story to Parijat, a writer who was influential in communist literary circles. In the 1970s and 1980s, Parijat’s residence in Kathmandu became a center for left-wing thinkers and activists.
Although it was risky to share and publish accounts of rebellions from Nepal’s history under the panchayat regime, Parijat was inspired by what she learned about Yogmaya from Aziz and later read Sarvartha Yogabani. She encouraged her staff to do further research and make Yogmaya’s name more widely known. This was fruitful as one of her collaborators, Uttam Prasad Pant, published three articles in Nepali literary magazines between 1984 and 1986. In these, Yogmaya was portrayed only as a female poet so that she was not censored by the panchayat government.
A few weeks later, Lekhnath Bhandari wrote an essay on Yogmaya titled “त्यो पहिलो विद्रोहिणी योगमाया” (Yogmaya, the first wife). Rebel), which appeared in one of Nepal’s leading feminist magazines, Asmita. Here she was represented as Nepal’s first female poet and activist. In 2001, Barbara Nimri Aziz’s book Heir to a Silent Song: Two Rebel Women of Nepal was published. Slowly, Yogmaya’s story became more popular and established as fact. On March 8, 2011, her statue was unveiled in Bhojpur on the occasion International Women’s Day.
Slowly, Yogmaya’s story became more popular and established as fact. On March 8, 2011, her statue was unveiled in Bhojpur on the occasion International Women’s Day.
Hutt compares the mythologization of Yogmaya Neupane to that of Joan of Arc (Joan of Arc). “Like the much-mythologized life of Joan of Arc, Yogmaya’s story is organized with a dramatic sense – ‘first the glory of the hero with the all-encompassing conviction of his personal mission, then a reversal, the destruction of hopes and … extinction’ (Warner 1981, 264)) – and it ends in destruction, not as defeat but as victory.” (Hutt, 394)
Source: Alchetron
Yogmaya Neupane is thus a political-religious figure who is celebrated in modern secular Nepal for her preaching of moral and social justice. Through religion, in the form of Sarvartha Yogabani, she criticized the status quo and demanded a Dharmarajya. As a mother, daughter and wife, she defied traditional gender roles in many ways. As a female ascetic, Yogmaya demonstrated that women could leave the domestic sphere and wield power, challenging the deep-rooted norms of the time.
References:
Ghimire, Asmita. “Jogmaya Neupane: The Unknown Rhetoricist and the Known Rebel – CFSSRC.” Colostate.edu, June 13, 2022, Wac.Colestate.edu/du/docs/peitho/article/araticle/yogmaya-neupane-neupane-rhetorician-and-the-known-rebel/. Accessed August 12, 2025.
Hutt, Michael. “The Disappearance and Reappearance of Yogmaya: The Restoration of a Nepali Revolutionary Icon.” Contemporary South Asia, Vol. 21, No. 4, Dec. 2013, pp. 382–97, https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2013.856380. Accessed February 23, 2021.
Lyytikäinen, Minna et al. “Towards feminist genealogies for peace research.” Cooperation and Conflict, vol. 56, No. 1, [Sage Publications, Inc., Sage Publications, Ltd.]2021, pp. 3–25, https://doi.org/10.2307/48649513. JSTOR.
“NEPAL: Yogmaya Neupane: Nepal’s first female revolutionary.” PeaceWomen, February 3, 2015, www.peacewomen.org/content/nepal-yogmaya-neupane-nepals-first-female-revolutionary.
“The Iconization of Yogmaya Neupane – Social Science Baha.” Soscbaha.org, 2019, soscbaha.org/lecture-series/the-iconisation-of-yogmaya-neupane/. Accessed August 12, 2025.
Wagle, Anupa. “Yogmaya: Historical Reality in Fictional Existence.” JODEM: Journal of Language and Literature, vol. 10, no. 1, Sept. 2019, pp. 1–11, https://doi.org/10.3126/jodem.v10i1.30393. Accessed September 15, 2021.
Samhita is a final year student of English at IIT Madras. She enjoys reading and particularly enjoys studying women’s literature, including as part of her academic research. She is a big fan of Sudokus, crosswords and all sorts of puzzles.
