Kingship and the state
- Chogyal
- "Dharma king." The title of the rulers of Sikkim, held by twelve monarchs of the Namgyal dynasty from 1642 until the office was abolished in 1975. It framed kingship as a religious function, not merely a territorial one.
- Denjong
- The Tibetan name for Sikkim, meaning "valley of rice." It is the source of the name used by this site.
- Dzong
- A fortified administrative unit, in the Tibetan manner, each built around a fort. Phuntsog Namgyal divided the new kingdom into twelve of them.
- Dzonga
- The official who headed a dzong, appointed from among the Lepcha.
- Kalon
- A minister. Phuntsog Namgyal appointed twelve kalons from the Bhutia community to govern the new state.
- Kazi
- A landholder who held a revenue estate on lease from the Chogyal and sublet plots to peasant households. Of Sikkim’s 104 estates, 61 were leased to kazis and thikadars.
- Thikadar
- A leaseholder of a revenue estate, functionally similar to a kazi. The two terms are often used together in descriptions of the old land system.
- Mandal
- A village headman under the kazi and thikadar system, responsible for collecting rent and settling minor disputes.
- Karbari
- An assistant to the mandal.
- Suba
- A Limbu chief. The Subbas retained substantial autonomy over their own districts under the Chogyal.
- Gyalmo
- The queen consort. Hope Cooke, who married Palden Thondup Namgyal in 1963, was the last Gyalmo.
- Chumbi Valley
- The valley north of Sikkim, in Tibet, where Guru Tashi settled in the 13th century and where the deposed Chogyal Tenzing Namgyal lived in exile.
Religion and culture
- Mun
- The traditional animist religion of the Lepcha, and the title of its ritual specialists — usually women. It works by negotiation with the powers of particular places rather than by doctrine.
- Bongthing
- A male Lepcha ritual specialist in the Mun tradition.
- Róngkup
- The Lepcha name for themselves: "children of the Róng."
- Vajrayana
- The tantric branch of Buddhism practised in Sikkim and Tibet, organised around lineages and monastic centres.
- Nyingma
- The "ancient" order of Tibetan Buddhism, the school of Pemayangtse and most of Sikkim’s oldest monasteries.
- Kagyu
- The lineage to which Rumtek belongs, seat in exile of the Gyalwang Karmapa.
- Lhakhang
- A temple or shrine hall. Pemayangtse began as a small lhakhang in 1647.
- Cham
- A masked ritual dance performed by monks, most visibly at Losar and Losoong, in which each mask is a deity and the dance accomplishes a ritual purpose rather than illustrating a story.
- Sangha
- The monastic community. Under Article 371F the Sangha elects one member of the Sikkim assembly.
- Lho-Mehn-Tsong
- The pact attributed to the first Chogyal, binding Bhutia, Lepcha and Limbu as father, mother and sons of one family, and forbidding them to fight one another.
Constitutional and modern terms
- Protectorate
- A state that keeps its own internal government but surrenders defence and foreign affairs to a stronger power. Sikkim was a British protectorate from 1861 and an Indian one from 1950.
- Associated State
- The status Sikkim held between 1974 and 1975 under the 35th Amendment — internally self-governing, with representation in the Indian Parliament but not full statehood.
- Article 371F
- The constitutional provision, inserted by the 36th Amendment in 1975, that governs Sikkim’s special arrangements: a 32-seat assembly, reserved seats, and protection for pre-merger land law.
- Bhutia-Lepcha seats
- Twelve assembly seats reserved for candidates of Bhutia or Lepcha identity, matched by twelve for Nepali candidates, as agreed in May 1973.