Temples of Nepal
The Nepali Hindu temples at Pashupatinath, Bhaktapur and various other places have the simple, distinctive pagoda design seen across Nepal. The stacked, sloping rooves are not coated with gold. The main structures are made of stone and timber, weathered and darkened by millenia, eroded by earthquakes, humidity, torrential rain and hail. They go back thousands of years and contain hidden treasures celebrated in legend by Hindus worldwide. Their antiquity is the key to their value, although they need rebuilding every few hundred years as nature takes its toll. They are not only monuments from the past, they are continually being renewed, and have been for thousands of years.
I took a drive one day to see the beautiful Buddhist stupa, Boudhanath, in Kathmandu, with its eerie ‘Buddha eyes’ and harmonious form. Siddartha Gautama was never far from the collective unconscious and even taxis proclaimed with banners that he was born in Nepal. Some Newaris are Buddhist and ancient Hindu epics are common to both religions.
Siva mandiras are more numerous. I asked an Indian friend long ago if Siva was the most powerful of all the Hindu gods. He replied “Yes! Except for Parvati, because she is his wife. And Kali.” It’s difficult, or impossible, to get a western-style appraisal of Indo-Nepali spirituality but Siva seems to be the most revered of the Hindu deities. Everytime I try to read up on these things I get lost in the different worlds contained in classical Hinduism, but it can be said that Siva is the major Hindu deity, and quite possibly the inventor of meditation.
Siva walked in the mountains five thousand years ago. Two and a half thousand years later Buddha appeared in the same region, a few hundred miles south on the plains at Lumbini, and simplified the idea of meditation to one technique; vipassana, or watching the breath, which is also derived from Siva’s methods. It’s a reasonable assumption that, as everyone has to breath, this one technique should be suitable for everyone. No need to try, or memorise, a hundred and twelve possibilities. In the twentieth century another spiritual master, two and a half thousand years after Buddha and a little further south in Madhya Pradesh, popularised modern meditations with music and dance.
Meditation is a technique common to the Indo-Nepali religions. Other religions don’t have such practices, relying on logic and words to communicate essential Truth which is beyond words, thoughts and beliefs.
More recent Nepali structures freely combine pagoda and stupa styles, ancient figures and modern materials, in a modern montage. Although Nepal was ancient its people are not. They tend to be very contemporary in their outlook, more so than the other Asian nations I know, although the opposite is true of their technological abilities, where they lag behind. The mountains and traditions have held them back, and helped preserve their unique culture.
One day I hired a cab to take me to the most ancient and significant Siva mandira in Pokhara. That’s what I requested of the driver and we agreed on a hefty sum (in local terms) for the return journey. He brought me to a small, unimpressive dark little building in the middle of a narrow, busy road. I thought there must have been a misunderstanding but there wasn’t. In Nepal it is the antiquity and authenticity which are prized, not size or opulence.
I couldn’t see anything there to photograph. I asked him to take me somewhere more photogenic and we went to a much grander place not far away which gave me plenty to work with in the half hour or so before a monsoonal shower ended the adventure.
The reason many Nepali mandira are in the middle of roads is that the roads came later, and they connected the temples. When, over time, an increase in traffic demanded more space the road sometimes divided around the mandir which became stranded in the middle. Sometimes the road is just at the side. They were not planned, they had just evolved that way.
Pokhara Shanti Stupa, built in the nineteen seventies as a symbol of peace by Nichidatsu Fujii, a famous Buddhist monk from Japan, overlooks Lake Phewa from Anadu Hill at a height of eleven hundred metres. Elegant and serene, it graces the skyline although there still isn’t any world peace, there is a war industry instead to which humanity devotes all its excess wealth. The word shanti, from Sanskrit, means peace, and the Buddhists are, at the moment, the only ones talking about it in the world of conflict, misunderstanding and the miltary-industrial complex.
Nearby, the huge ‘Pumdikot’ Siva Statue, one of the biggest in Nepal, has been recently erected on a slightly higher level. There is no rivalry, however, unless it is a friendly one. They are both busy with tourists and from each, and the trail in between, you can see, on a clear day, the dramatic sight of the Annapurna ranges, only about twenty kilometres away to the north behind the lake and the metropolis.
In a Buddhist settlement on the north side of town I was shown a pile of rocks which held great significance. People had contributed to the pile for a long time and at the botom there were precious artefacts, never to be seen. Some of the stones had inscriptions and carvings on them. The important of particular objects and places were different in this part of the world. Temples were not meant to look impressive, but to mean something.
The stupas and mandira I saw will doubtless become more significant as the world spirals towards a grossly material reality with spiritual trimmings a decorative afterthought. The many festivals celebrated in Nepal kept the old traditions alive and healthy despite the pressure to ‘catch up’ with the modern world.