Kathmandu, Monday, October 17, 2016

We drove past the parliament building to the Durbar (Palace) Square of Kathmandu. In 1768 Prithvi Narayan Shah invaded, conquered and unified the Kathmandu valley and made Kathmandu the capital, which it has been ever since. We were about the visit the seat of government for all of Nepal that was established at that time.

Our entrance to Durbar Square was dominated by Nau Talle Durbar, the nine-storied palace, in classic Newari architecture. Unfortunately, many of its stories collapsed during last year’s earthquake, and it is no longer as tall. Attached to it is a newer, neo-colonial palace built in 1908 that was a museum but is now closed because of earthquake damage.

Across from Nau Talle Durbar is the once-famous “Freak Street,” named after the hippies, or “freaks,” that hung out there in the 60’s and 70’s. It turns out that our fellow traveler, George, was one of them 48 years ago! His wife, Kay, was here 36 years ago to learn about gold jewelry-making from the local craft people. They are the two Nepal veterans on our trip. In Basantapur Square, adjacent to Durbar Square, we watched some school kids play a game similar to jump-rope, but with strings stretched between the ankles of two girls, rather than an actual jump rope.

We walked west to the house of the Kathmandu Kumari, the living goddess. Many Nepali cities, including also Patan, have a pre-pubescent girl from a Buddhist family who has been selected to be the Kumari, or living goddess, for the Hindu families in town. The Kumari is selected as a little girl, and then retires to receive a pension once she reaches puberty. We walked between two brightly-painted stone lions into the Newari-architecture courtyard where we waited for the Kumari to make her appearance at a second-story window. After a few minutes she appeared and looked out the window without acknowledging us. After a couple of minutes she went back inside. No pictures of the Kumari are allowed.

We walked out of the Kumari’s house into the heart of Durbar Square. On the west side of the square are two temples that were completely demolished by the earthquake; all that remains are their plinths. To their north the Shiva-Parvati Temple remains. White images of Shiva and his consort peer out from an upstairs window. This temple was built in the late 1700s by Bahadur Shah in classic Newari style.

On the north side of the square is the ferocious figure of the Kala (black) Bhairab, a manifestation of Shiva. Bhairab has six arms, wears a necklace of skulls and tramples a corpse, symbolic of human ignorance. Suspected criminals used to be brought in front of the Kala Bhairab to make their confessions, because it was felt that lying in front of the Bhairab would cause immediate death by vomiting blood.

We walked past a statue of the monkey god, Hanuman, whose face has been covered by orange paste applied by decades of devotees. We turned and walked into the west wing of the Hanuman palace into what’s left (after the earthquake) of the Tribhuvan Museum. Beyond the door is a representation of Narsingha, Vishnu as half man and half lion, disemboweling the demon Hiranyakashipu. Behind glass we could see the cobra-backed thrones of the kings of the Kathmandu Valley. Above we could see the five circular roofs of the Panch Mukhi Hanuman Temple, which only priests may enter. According to Lonely Planet, each of the cities in the valley has a five-story temple; the great Nyatapola Temple in Bhaktapur is more famous.

We did not enter the Taleju Temple in the northeastern corner of the square, but we were able to take photos of the kneeling Garuda statue next to it. We left Durbar Square and walked southwest to Paropakar school. Some pre-teen boys were playing soccer in the school yard. We met the school’s vice-principal and gave him some school supplies courtesy of Road Scholar. The classrooms seemed bare to me. The students looked nice in their uniforms, and the teachers we saw seemed sincere and dedicated.

We rode the bus to a westernized restaurant called the Red Carpet Restro & Bar. We sat at a long table where each course was served to us individually in very elegant fashion. The food was similar to what we have had before – stir-fry and grilled chicken. There was a vegetable cake that had been stir-fried in a sauce and was quite delicious.

Our next stop was the great Buddhist stupa at Swayambhunath. Raaz said that the base of the stupa is 2500 years old. The emperor Ashoka allegedly visited the site 2000 years ago, but Lonely Planet reports that the earliest confirmed activity here was in 460 AD. This is sometimes called the “Monkey Temple” because of the rhesus macaques the roam the site.

We entered the site from the west, where there was room for the bus to let us off. We stopped at a pool where a smiling golden Buddha presided with one hand raised. People tried to toss small coins into a bronze bucket at the Bhudda’s feet. George got a three-pointer. This was the pool Raaz had told us about with a crooked “p” in the phrase, “May peace prevail on earth.” The number of prayer flags, and the height from which they were suspended, was astonishing.

Raaz led us up the western steps and stopped by the great thunderbolt, a symbol of enlightenment – it destroys ignorance, but is itself indestructible. In Buddhist symbolism, the thunderbolt indicates male power, and a ceremonial bell indicates female power.

The golden pinnacle of the stupa has four faces of the Buddha that stare out in the four directions. The nose is represented by the Nepali number ek (one), which signifies unity. The third eye signifies the all-seeing insight of the Buddha. The white dome of the stupa represents the earth, while the 13-tier structure at the top symbolizes the 13 stages that humans pass through to achieve Nirvana. There were some signs of earthquake damage around the stupa, but the stupa itself received only superficial damage.

Northwest of the stupa, but still at the top of the hill, is the golden Hariti (Ajima) Temple, dedicated to Hariti, the Hindu goddess of smallpox, but also a goddess of fertility. Although this is a Buddhist stupa, the Hindu temple onsite illustrates the assimilation of Hindu and Buddhist religious traditions in Nepal. There is a sea of small stupas and monuments around the base of the main stupa. Because the previous night had included a full moon, a group of worshipers, with the men dressed in black and the women in red, were singing and dancing in a clockwise direction around the stupa. To my delight, an ensemble of monks was playing musical instruments, including the long, bass horns that sound to me quintessentially Tibetan Buddhist.

From the stupa, we drove to the Kathmandu Crowne Plaza hotel and checked in. We had dinner at the hotel and went to bed early after a satisfying day.