[1] Pratap Malla had two queens: the first being a Maithali lady of Southern Nepal and the second being a sister of Zil-gnon dbang-rgyal rdo-rje, a prominent Tibetan Buddhist guru, who had served as an advisor to him.

Pratap Malla is said to have repented this act so much so that he wanted to absolve himself of his sins and consulted the wise and learned men on the matter.

In order to commemorate the occasion, he also raised a pillar on the southern gate of Pashupati, and established a grazing ground near the area.

Moreover, Shree Nivas, son of Siddhi Nara Singha was no less inferior to Pratap Malla in courage and diplomacy.

By 1600, Tibet was in a state of near chaos as a result of the struggle between competing Buddhist sects and the more basic regional conflict between the two central Tibetan provinces, of which Lhasa and Shigatse are the political centers.

The powerful figure of the Fifth Dalai Lama, the head of the Gelugpa (yellow) sect of Tibetan Buddhism, gradually gained control, both spiritual and temporal, over Tibet in the first half of the 17th century, with the valuable assistance of the Khoshote Mongols.

[7] During this critical period, two ambitious kings, Ram Shah of Gorkha (1606–33) and Pratap Malla of Kantipur, took advantage of Tibetan weakness to seize control of the vital border-pass areas through which most of the trans-Himalayan trade passed.

Ram Shah led another army into Kerong area, defeated the Tibetans at Khinchog and advanced as far as Kukurghat.

Pratap malla decided against contending directly with the Gorkha ruler for control of Kerong, but sought instead to bring the second major trade route, via Kuti, under his authority.

On the second occasion, Bhim Malla overran the border district and advanced some distance toward Shigatse before he was met by the deputies of the Dalai Lama, with whom he negotiated a peace settlement.

The king of Kathmandu also profited substantially from the process under which he minted coins for the Tibetan government, for he deducted a certain percentage of the silver provided by Lhasa as his fee for this service.

[8] In the year 1661, Pratap Malla, the then King of Kathmandu received Albert d’Orville and Johann Grueber – a Belgian and an Austrian with open arms into the valley.

They were visiting Kathmandu from the imperial Chinese Observatory in Peking via Lhasa, seeking a land route to India.

Despite the good hospitality shown by the king, the following unflattering picture of Nepal during the reign of Pratap Malla emerges in the book: From Nesti is a journey of six days to Cadmendu, the capital of the kingdom of Necbal, situated at 27”5’ North.

Here there resides a powerful, but pagan, the king who is not unfriendly to the Christian law... Cities of this kingdom are Cuthi and Nesti.

When sick people are near death and there is no hope for their recovery, they are thrown out of the house into the ditches of the field full of corpses.

The image of Krishna inside the temple is accompanied by his two wives, Satyabhama and Rukmini, all of which, according to a Sanskrit inscription, bear deliberate resemblance to Pratap Malla and his own two queens.

[10] Across from the Krishna Temple, standing on a slightly raised platform in front of the Hanuman Dhoka is the square stone pillar, known as the Pratap Dhvaja.

It is topped by a statue of King Pratap Malla, seated with folded hands and surrounded by his two wives and his five (including an infant) sons.

It is said that telling a lie while standing before Kala Bhairab will bring instant death and it was once used as a form of trial by ordeal.

Giuseppe, writing at the end of eighteenth century: In a wall of the royal palace of Kathmandu, which is built upon the court before the palace, there is a great stone of a single piece, which is about fifteen feet long, and four or five feet thick: on the top of this great stone there are four square holes at equal distances from each other.

[14] The water with which the pond was originally filled was taken from fifty-one sacred rivers throughout Nepal and India, thus ensuring its sanctity.

The temple in the middle of the pond has a domed roof reminiscent of classical Indian Mughal architecture and is surmounted by a copper spire.

On the southern embankment is a statue of an elephant carrying three passengers on its back, thought to be three of the male members of the Pratap Malla's family, while a fourth person is held in its trunk.

It is said to be haunted by ghosts, including one especially seductive female spectre which managed to unnerve even the great Pratap Malla.

[14] The pond is fenced with iron bars, apparently to prevent suicide by drowning, and opened once a year during Bhaitika, the fifth and final day of Tihar.

The queen laughed and the king instituted a tradition of including jokes, satire, mockery, and lampoon into the Gaijatra celebration.

As per the traditions, every family who has lost a relative during that past year participates in a procession through the streets leading a cow.

[15] Flanking the vajra, he also added two white shikhar (spires) temples, known as Anantapur (southeast) and Pratapur (northeast), which were built in 1646 to house the protector deities Bhairab and Bhairabi.