Eagle5

Now you are partly on track. Your second post is better than before as you have refrained yourself using derrogatory words unlike your previous post. However, I could not find a reasonable logic and consistency in your thoughts between these two different posts. You said, (1) Newar - or Malla came to valley lonmg after  these civilization evolved in the region, during only 12th century and in second post you said - (2) FYI, Lichhavi period was more sophisticated than Malla (known as golden period of Nepal civilization-unfold the pages of history book) and advanced in terms of civilization. You are well read of history books so that I do not need to remind you that Mallas were not typical icon of Newar when they entered Nepal. They were thakuris originally and then diffused into newar community later on. You know that the people in valley and its surrounding territory (of Nepal Mandal) were basically the same Newar people, under both Lichhavi and Malla dynasty, right? Then, how can you take those sophistications attained during Lichhavi reign out and separate them from Newar Civilization ? You cannot do this. Newars were there during Lichchavi period too and several Lichhavi-era words are still in use in Newari local language  among newars in Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Dolakha locale.

The good point is that you agree that Mallas inherited the pre-existing knowledge, and promoted Newar Civilization trademarking the cultural assets behind their names but they did not invent the civilization by themselves. When you refer to Newar civiliation, it is the civilization evolved and flourished in Nepal Mandal (that includes all circumferencing chakras of the astapithas) throughout the history that covers Lichchavis, Mallas and Shahs as well (Shah kings attain Kumari festival, samyak mahadan etc. which are the part of Newari culture). The territory of Newar Civilization extends little far from current KTM valley (including Khopring, Dwalkhwa, Farpring, Makhopring, yambec and several other drangas of Nepal Mandal encircled by 24 pithas), but the valley is the nucleaus of this civilization.

It is true, the development of agriculture (farming practices, crop calendar, cattle grazing, manure processing, seed preservation etc.), irrigation (construction of chanels e.g. rajkulos, irrigation schedule-arrangement, conflict management etc.), civil construction (road network, sewage system, drinking water supply, etc.), urban planning (separation of lands based on productivity, landuse categorization etc.), were mostly advanced during Lichchavi period. The details of these technological advancement is not documented well but they have been succesfully traced back by scholars to much beyond the Mallas' reign, which certainly indicates Lichchavi period was having better environment for development. Based on that, historicians indicated Lichchavi era as the golden era of Nepalese Civilization. Traces of these development are found mostly in Nepal Mandala, the land populated by Newars.

The most important point to notice in these developments is that they were not influenced much by other major civilizations in the continent. Therefore I don't hesitate to distance Newar civilization from others despite being aware on the fact that there are evidences of possible influence from other Indian subcontinent civilizations. Such an influence is obvious when there is powerful invaders like Lichchavis and Mallas in our history. I will give you some examples of differences here.

(1) Agricultural techniques are quite different. For example, if you compare the case of conventional manure processing under Newar tradition, you will find a very sophisticated nytrogen recycling scheme - that is conected with saagaa - installed in every household for sustainable agriculture, which you don't have in other civilizations. Also, Newars rarely use animal powered plough, Their Kodali is much different from the digging hoe that is widely used in indian subcontinent. There are several other differences I can detail on this category.

(2) If you compare the drinking water, other civilizations mostly relied on naturally found clean water resources, but newar civilization worked on water purification and installed water reclying scheme. The stone-water spouts, located mostly below normal ground surface level, are equipped with a series of underground complex water purification facilities that are not common elsewhere in other civilizations. You mentioned - Underground water spout is based on Vastusaastra principle-origin Vedic Civilization, but you should know that Vastushastra is the philosophy of balancing right shape, size, slope, color and direction that is vital to architectural design, whereas I am talking about the chemistry of underground water spouts that is much beyond the scope of Vastushastra. Vastushastra may guide only on maintaining proper slope to make gravity driven free flow of water, where as underground water purification schemes are found to have installed pressure driven anti-gravity water flow too.

(3) If you compare the traditional baking technology that were used in brick-making or pottery, you will find minimal use of charcoal in Newar's technique compared to those who inherited the influence of other Indian subcontinent civilization. The traditional Newari baking plants use dry straw of sub-tropical pine arrayed through ventilated chambers with layered timber under ash, which is more sophisticated and more efficient as it allows easier temperature control. Similarly, Newar people have tradition of using consolidated fine clay to make high density brick, which is not that common in other civilization.

(4) If you see the housings structure, Newar civilization has 4 and half-story buildings, that consists of chheri, maatan, chwota, baingah, kahsi (notice all these words are lichchavi-era words) and all these stories have specified purposes. Kitchen is on bainga, store for precious metal, weapons and cereals must be in Maatan. Vegetable and spices are to be stored in Chwota. Firewood, water vessels etc. are to be stored at Chheri. There is rules and directions to use every corner of the building. And if you compare this things with other civilizations, you will find a lot of differences. Most indian civilization directs to locate kitchen at groundfloor or out of main building, but Newari architecture keeps it at 4th floor inside the building. Vastushastra is found generally adopted in Newari architecture too in chosing directions. But there are evidences that priorities of Newari architecture is maintaining symetry and hierarchy. So, one may argue that Vastushastra is not necessarily the strict guideline for design but could be a good reference.

These few examples are just to highlight some differences. There are many others, e.g. the dyeing techniques, metallurgy, chemicals, food processing, hydraulics, childcare, maternity care, etc. etc. One may find a few similarities. You will see a lot of similarities between Mohenjodaro and Harrappa, or Indus and Mohenjodaro etc. but they are essentially different civilizations. If you compare one to one, you may even see similarities in tibettan civilization and Indian Vedic civilizations, but that does not nullify significance of tibettan civilization in tibet.

In the end, I can sense that you like to make guesses, perhaps that inspired youto suggest me names of few books you are familiar with. Do not worry about my readings, I have zapped them already. Moreover, I do not take those books as the bible of nepalese civilization nor do I consider them an error-free or exhaustive documentations. The authors of those books have done great job in bringing information together, for which I certainly appreciate them and would consider them of high reference value; however, there is left enough space to make questions on several issues. I do not want to enter in that detail right now. To be honest, some of those authors are motivated to find similarities and draw parallel in the information they have collected from Nepal Mandal and their knowledge on other well-known civilizations because that makes them easy to get the article well-reviewed from peers, particularly when they are talking about Newar civilization, less known to outside world. However, some readers may be misguided by those parallels and end up understanding as if Newar Civilization have just adopted knowledge from others rather than finding the value of knowledge accumulated by themselves. So, I would put my eyes on differences than similarities to see anomalies clearly. I do not care if one would understand this as "creating concept of civilization".