Kiranti

…of the indigenous people called Kiranti, living in Nepal, on the easternmost section of the Himalayas east of the Arun River, and in northern India, mostly in the states of Sikkim, West Bengal, and Assam. Altogether, the Limbu numbered some 380,000 in the early 21st century.

…most populous group of the Kiranti people, the Rai numbered about 635,000 at the turn of the 21st century. They speak several dialects of Kiranti, a Tibeto-Burman language. With the Limbu and Magar peoples, they supplied the bulk of the Gurkha contingent to the British-Indian armies. The Rai are subsistence…