A sacred hill in the land of the Magars
Gulmi was one of the small hill kingdoms of western Nepal before unification, part of the old Baise and Chaubise world of rival principalities, and the hills around Resunga have long been home to Magar communities. Tamghas, below the hill, grew as the district headquarters, a bazaar town on a saddle with offices, schools and a hospital serving the surrounding villages.
Resunga's importance has always been religious. Its name is linked by local tradition with Rishyashringa, a sage of the Treta age in Hindu belief, who is said to have meditated in its forests. The hill became a place of pilgrimage and the forest a protected, sacred grove. In 2000 a team of French and Nepali scholars published a study of the region's society and religion titled Resunga: The Mountain of the Horned Sage.
In 2014 the government merged Tamghas with three neighbouring village committees, Arkhale, Dubichaur and Simichaur, into a new municipality and named it after the hill. Today a road network reaches much of Gulmi, but the climb to Resunga's summit is still made on foot by most pilgrims.
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