Two temples of Patan Darbar

Early evening was a good time to visit Patan’s Darbar Square in Kathmandu. For one, the place was full of people. Also, importantly for tourists, by the number of people entering various temples you could tell which are the most important ones. The three storeyed stone temple which you see in the featured photo was clearly the most important one. An aarti was in progress, and I could hear voices singing from inside. It was the wrong time for tourism, so I did not enter.

The Bhimsen temple was also very busy, and therefore, clearly important to local life. It was built in the traditional Newa style: a three storeyed pagoda temple in fired brick and wood. I’ve never seen a temple to the second brother of the Pandavas, Bhima, and I would have liked to enter. The temple is closed to non-Hindus, meaning that it is meant to be only a place of worship. Although I would have technically qualified to enter, at this busy time I did not feel like behaving as a tourist inside.

I satisfied myself by admiring the beautifully sculpted beams and brackets. I had seen photos of this square after the 2015 earthquake, with temple spires shattered into pieces. I was glad the restoration has been done so well. A groundswell of public opinion prevented the government of that time from a fast restoration done by converting these places to structures made of concrete. The careful restoration of the temple using brick and the old pieces of wood and stone is taking long, but will preserve the history of the place better. The memory of Srinivas Malla, the king who caused the temple to be built in 1680 CE is being prolonged. I looked at the steep stairs behind the doors of the temple. “A daily climb would be good exercise,” The Family remarked.

I walked back to the Krishna temple again. It is a typical syncretic Nepali temple. The ground floor is dedicated to Krishna and his consorts Radha and Rukmini, the second floor to Shiva, and the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshwara reigns over the top floor. So you have the Vaisnavite and the Shaivite streams of Hinduism, as well as Buddhism in the same temple. What a wonderful use of the structure erected in 1667 by Siddhi Narasingh Mallya!