While Malla rulers fought amongst themselves for suzerainty of Nepal Valley, numerous other kingdoms and principalities battled each other for dominance in the west, south, and east of what is Nepal today. Sometime between 1300 and 1495 CE, a wave of Rajput warrior kings from the Kshatriya Varna (Chhetri in Nepal) fled Muslim invaders on the plains of India and made their way to the foothills of the Himalayas. They settled about 200 kilometres west of Nepal Valley, near the deepest river gorge in the world, the Kali Gandaki. Over time their descendants vanquished all the principalities between the Kali Gandaki and the Marshyangdi Khola, another glacially sourced river 100 kilometres to its east. By 1559, Dravya Shah (1559–1570) had conquered the Ghale (Gurung) kingdom in Gorkha in the foothills nearly 100 kilometres west of Kathmandu and founded the Shah dynasty of that region.

For the next 200 years, Shah kings exerted their military prowess to increase their territory, revenue, and influence. They vied with Nepal Valley kings for domination of trans-Himalayan trade with Tibet and India, they fought off the advances of the British, they subjugated the many chiefdoms to the west in the Karnali region, and they overpowered the sovereignties that lay between them and Nepal Valley, as well as those to the south, subduing more than 50 separate principalities in all. Ultimately, in 1768, the ninth of the Shah kings from Gorkha, Prithvi Narayan Shah (1723–1775), conquered the cities of Nepal Valley and soon after consolidated the country into Gorkha Rajya (Gorkha Kingdom). For the next 237 years, Prithvi Narayan Shah and his descendants were the reigning monarchs of a relatively united Nepal, settling, conquering, or continuing to battle independent principalities and expanding their borders beyond what is Nepal today. Only at the beginning of the twentieth century did the ancient Nepal Valley give its name to the entire country when it shifted from Gorkha Rajya to Nepal. Only in 1933 did the official language, Gorkhali, come to be called Nepali.

In 1769, one of the first things Prithvi Narayan Shah did was ‘expel permanently from his territories all foreigners, including traders, Roman Catholic missionaries, and even musicians or artists influenced by northern India's style’ (Savada, 1991: 9).