The Women Who Held the Family Together After Heera Devi Yami
During the long years when Dharma Ratna Yami was repeatedly imprisoned for political activities, life inside the household unfolded under constant surveillance, financial strain, and uncertainty. Food was scarce. Debt was familiar. Fear was ordinary. Heera Devi raised her children through pregnancies, illness, and exhaustion with almost no material support.
In those difficult years, one person appeared regularly and quietly: Dhana Maya Tuladhar. Mandas Tuladhar (1900–1975) was another notable Nepalese Buddhist scholar, Nepal Bhasa activist and pioneer publisher. He was married to Dhan Maya, the daughter of Dharma Sundar Tuladhar of Dhalasikwa, Kathmandu. They got married when Mandas Tuladhar was 16. She was not a political figure. But family memory preserves her through small, steady acts—bringing what she could, staying when needed, helping without announcement. Though she herself lived with financial hardship in rented rooms and her husband Mandas in jail, she supported Heera Devi without hesitation. Her husband Man Das Tuladhar who is the uncle of Dharma Ratna Yami had been in jail during such dangerous days.
Key Relationships: Ratna Das Tuladhar → Grand patriarch. Ratna Das Tular had four sons. They were Asha Ratna Tuladhar, Bhawani Ratna Tuladhar, Man Das Tuladhar and Harkha Das Tuladhar. Bhawani Ratna Tuladhar was the father of Dharma Ratna Yami. Man Das Tuladhar was the paternal uncle of Dharma Ratna Yami. Dhana Maya Tuladhar was the wife of Man Das Tuladhar who helped Heera Devi during hardship. Biswa Laxmi Tuladhar was the daughter of Man Das Tuladhar & Dhana Maya Tuladhar, mentor to the six daughters of Heera Devi Yami. Heera Devi Yami was the wife of Dharma Ratna Yami
Relatives recall how she cared during long periods of frail health after childbirths of Heera Devi including small financial help when she herself was suffering from severe financial constraint. Then came the day of Dhana Maya's death. At Dhana Maya's cremation, Heera Devi’s grief overwhelmed her already weakened body. Witnesses remember her crying openly recalling how Dhana Maya saved her life during the critical times of underground ovements, as if years of strain and reliance had suddenly collapsed. There, under the weight of sorrow and exhaustion, she suffered a severe heart attack.
After Heera Devi’s Death: The Six Daughters and a son
The six daughters and a son suddenly found themselves without their mother. Dharma Ratna Yami, who had spent most of his life in political struggle and prison, had never learned to manage a household. He had grown up as the youngest cherished son, protected from domestic responsibilities. The daughters would later say, “Biswa Laxmi Tuladhar and Lani Devi Tuladhar became a mother to us.” They arrived as mentors —guiding the girls, and helping Dharma Ratna adjust to responsibilities he had never before carried.
What made Biswa Laxmi’s presence different was her understanding. As the daughter of Dhana Maya Tuladhar and Man Das Tuladhar, she had grown up watching about Heera Devi’s struggles during the Rana years. She knew this was not only a grieving family, but a family shaped by sacrifice, reform, and resistance. She reminded the daughters of Heera Devi who their mother had been and why her life mattered. Her care was not only practical; it preserved memory, dignity, and values.
Heera Devi’s Quiet Challenge to Social Custom
Heera Devi held a conviction that went far beyond political struggle. She believed that daughters should inherit property just like sons. She spoke of this openly among relatives and neighbors. She would say: “Look, I am giving property to my daughters.” At that time, this was unheard of in the Tuladhar community and other communities of those days. Property passed through sons. Daughters married and left with no claim. Even most of the female relatives opposed her, believing tradition should not be disturbed. But Heera Devi believed social change must begin at home. She had seen cases where daughters, after failed marriages, returned to their maternal homes with no security. She wanted to break this norm not by argument—but by action.
The Legal Process She Began
Nepal’s earliest modern legal code, the Muluki Ain of 1854, did not guarantee women any real property rights; sons were prioritized heirs, and daughters were excluded from inheritance. In her final months, Heera Devi had already initiated the formal legal process to transfer one ropani of land to each of her six daughters. Documents had been prepared. The transfer was in its final procedural stage. Then her health collapsed. She was rushed to the All India Medical Hospital in New Delhi (January 1970}. From her sickbed after returning to Kathandu, she repeatedly asked for help to complete the remaining legal steps at the Charkhaladda office of Kathamandu. She turned to Moti Laxmi Upasika, one of the few educated relatives familiar with legal procedures. Heera Devi explained clearly why this mattered: not only for her daughters’ security, but to set an example that society could follow. But the process was not completed. Family memory holds that Moti Laxmi Upasika strongly opposed the idea, viewing it as a dangerous break from social norms. For her, this was not a reform to encourage. For Heera Devi, it was a principle she wanted society to witness. The transfer remained unfinished at the time of her death. Moti Laxmi exercised influence that blocked a property registration process in the Nepal government’s property registration department.
Moti Laxmi Upasika (1909–1997) was a pioneering Nepal Bhasa (Newar) woman writer and is widely regarded as the first modern female story writer of Nepal. She got married at early age and got divorced at the age of 12 year. She is credited with breaking ground for women in Nepali and Nepal Bhasa literature, inspiring future generations of female writers. Her work and life are celebrated in Nepalese literary circles for their social, cultural, and linguistic importance. Because of this, scholars, Nepal Academy publications, and literary historians consistently describe her as someone who opened the door for later generations of female writers in Nepal. She wasn’t just a writer — she was a pioneer female literary voice in Nepal at a time when social structures restricted women’s intellectual participation.
She was a sister of Chittadhar Hridaya (1906–1982) who was one of the greatest literary figures of Nepal and a central leader of the Nepal Bhasa (Newar) literary renaissance. His full name was Chittadhar Hridaya Tuladhar. He is often respectfully referred to simply as “Hridaya” in Nepali literature. At a time when the Rana regime had banned Nepal Bhasa writing, Hridaya continued to write secretly and became a symbol of cultural resistance. His masterpiece, written in prison, is an epic poem on the life of Gautama Buddha and is considered one of the greatest works in Nepal Bhasa literature. Hridaya dedicated his life to serving his mother tongue, rejecting a flourishing ancestral business and suffering imprisonment by an autocratic government. In 1941, he was jailed for five years by the Rana regime for writing a poem in Nepal Bhasa in a crackdown against the language. The anthology contained a poem entitled Mother which he had written while mourning his mother's death. He had signed the poem "Motherless child" which the government took to mean that it had deprived the Newars of their mother tongue. For this reason, the poem was deemed subversive; and in 1940, he was sentenced to six years in jail. Schools, streets, and literary awards in Nepal are named after him. He is studied as a foundational figure in Nepal’s literary history. Chittadhar Hridaya and Moti Laxmi Upasika are first cousins of Dharma Ratna Yami.
Words Spoken After Her Death
In the days after Heera Devi passed away, the house filled with relatives. It was then that Biswa Laxmi Tuladhar spoke words the daughters never forgot: “You six daughters are very lucky. Your mother has legally given one ropani of land to each of you. This is unheard of. Parents do not give property to daughters. But your mother did.” Through her words, the daughters realized something profound: their mother had tried to change a social rule within her own lifetime however Moti Laxmi Upasika stopped the legal process.
Regret Among First Cousins
Heera Devi’s first cousins, especially Latan Devi Shakya, later spoke with regret. Living next door to Moti Laxmi Upasika, she had witnessed the objections and tensions directly. She remembered clearly that there was active resistance to the idea of transferring property to daughters. For her, the tragedy was not only Heera Devi’s death, but that she died without seeing her intention fulfilled. This memory stayed within the family as a moment when social custom proved stronger than individual resolve.
Illness, Anxiety, and a Painful Contradiction
In her last years, Heera Devi lived with asthma, heart problems, and constant worry for her children—especially her daughters. An article later written by Moti Laxmi Upasika in the Dharma Ratna Yami Smriti Granth (2046 B.S.) described Heera Devi as deeply anxious about her children’s future. Family members who read it felt a painful contradiction: the same person who documented her anxiety had opposed the concrete step she took to secure her daughters’ future. At that time, inheritance without a son passed to male relatives, not daughters. Women too upheld this norm. For Heera Devi, this was a source of frustration in her final days. She had tried to demonstrate change in practice. Society—and even family—was not ready. Heera Devi died in the lap of third child Timila begging her to call Moti Laxmi Upasika.