Kathmandu is Magic and a Little Nepal History

Today, we explored Kathmandu in Nepal. It’s an amazing place that seems magical. 

Recently, five months ago, Kathmandu was hit by a major earthquake, so many of the buildings either fell down or had huge chunks missing from them.

The government was so disorganized that it had a hard time trying to even help people that were hurt or had their houses knocked over, only the Military and the Police helped. Most of Nepal is Hindu, and the Hindu people think cows are holy, so nobody eats meat and we got to see cows walking around many of the 3,000 temples in Kathmandu.

  

A really cool fact is that just yesterday Nepal signed a new constitution making it a non-religious government (that is “secular”). There were many protests, because many of the Hindu’s wanted it to be a religious government and the first Hindu country.

Our first destination was Bhaktapur. Many of the buildings in the area of Bhaktapur were destroyed, so many of the people now live in tents that were provided by the Salvation Army. In the earthquake, 9,000 people died, although it was called a “kind” earthquake because it was in the afternoon on a Saturday, when most people would be out of their houses and not sleeping and kids were not in school. The whole city of Bhaktapur is a UNESCO World Heritage site. We walked into a large pavilion where there were many houses and temples. The entire square was made of red brick that were both bright and colorful, but also looked ancient and old. In the middle of the pavilion, there was a sign that said Vatsala Temple. We learned that this temple was leveled to the ground during the earthquake. All we saw was a large pile of rubble where the temple stood. We ducked into a small courtyard where there was a small offering to a god and a few statues of Hindu deities. It was interesting for us to watch a goat sacrificed in the temple, as an offering to the god of the temple for good blessing and karma.

We walked on through the temple until was came to a large opening where there was a fish pond that had a large statue of a cobra sticking out of it. It was a water spout where villagers would come and get their water before they had modern day plumbing. After that, we walked down a small alleyway, until we came to a spot where we saw all of these clay pots and a few other temples. During the walk, we saw all of these buildings that were just torn and had their bricks and tin roofs strewn all over the road damaged from the earthquake.  There were piles of red bricks everywhere we went, piled up from buildings or parts of buildings that collapsed.

 

We got to walk through the street alleys and meet some fun people, and went to a little square and got to see pottery making right in the square, where they took black mud, spun it on a large disk, and then a kiln, where they just pretty much stuffed all the pots into a fireplace under the ashes to harden the clay.

We learned that in Hinduism there are 33 Billion gods, many of them have statues that you can worship in the temples and in the open squares. There are only 28 Deities in Hinduism. The more hands the god has, the more powerful he or she is.

Our next destination was Pashupatinath Temple which is on the banks of the Bagmati River where Hindu’s are cremated. Pashupatinath Temple is one of the most sacred places in all of Hinduism. It is also filled, I mean literally filled, with crazy monkeys everywhere.

                                    

When people are cremated, they are wrapped in white linen and marigold flowers, and then placed over a fire, where anyone that is there can watch. Only the sons are allowed to do the process, no women. They first blow a conch shell which marks the start of one persons cremation. They do the cremation on the riverbank, making the head face north and putting fire in the persons mouth. The sons of the person who died must shave off all of their hair except for a small patch in the back of their head, also they must wear white for a whole year, so people know a relative of theirs died. Also, right after a person dies, the relatives must stay in a room for thirteen days without coming out. The whole ceremony takes three hours to complete. At the end, they brush all the ashes into the river. Two hundred Kilograms of wood are required to cremate the person. Forty people are cremated at this sight every day, and we watched on the river bank while many platforms were burning cremating bodies. Watching the cremations made me feel strange because it is so public, and in the US it is a private thing for just your family and friends. I thought it was just a little crazy, but also definitely interesting.

An interesting thing I learned is that cow dung is used to clean many holy sites and sometimes a wedding hall because it kills bacteria. Also cows are the national animal. We got to see some cows wandering around the area because they are Holy right before we left. Also, there were many monkeys wandering around the area.

We had an amazing and experiential day exploring Kathmandu!

Here’s a little bit of history on Kathmandu and Nepal, with an assist from dadd-o! (Brad helped on this history of Nepal):

Brief History of Kathmandu (and Nepal)

Humans have lived in the Kathmandu valley for over 2,000 years, and this beautiful country tucked into the base of the Himalayan Mountains has somehow survived “un-colonized” and never conquered, despite being wedged between the super-powers of India and China.

The native population, called the “Newari” people, have been influenced by many cultures.  Existing between strong cultures, and living on a major trade route between India, China and the Middle East, current day Nepal has become a melting pot of cultures with primary influence from including India, Tibet, and China.  Today, Nepal is comprised of 102 ethnic groups. The country is 81% Hindu, 10% Buddhist and the remaining population is mixed between Islamic, Christian and smaller religions.

Similar to many, many countries, Nepalese society evolved from a tribal system to a series of kingdoms.  In the 15^th century, the Kathmandu Valley was divided into three major kingdoms:  Kathmandu, Patan, and Bhaktapur.  Each kingdom had a central “Durbar” square where the palace and central temples existed.  To this day, they remain as brilliant and beautiful testaments to the artistic, spiritual and religious foundations these Newari peoples possessed.  As we witnessed (and I visited for an extended period 16 years ago), the Durbar squares were built around a central open space where the main temple square resides, surrounded by sacred courtyards, statues, stupas, open air shrines, dance platforms, sunken water fountains, bazaars, multi-storied houses with ornate wooden carved windows and doors, and very narrow compact streets that seem like arteries funneling the people, traffic, cows and now motorbikes through the system.

The caste system was a central part of the early cultural traditions (and even perpetuates to today) and interestingly the streets get progressively narrower as one moves from the higher caste areas to the lower caste neighborhoods.

Interesting tidbit of Nepalese history:  it was never conquered.  Through diplomacy, not military strength, modern day Nepal held off what would have been inevitable conquest from British East India and Tibet.

First, when Songsten Gampo conquered and united all of the Himalayan kingdoms of Bhutan, Tibet and parts of what would be Nepal in the sixth century, the Nepalese king granted to the Tibetan ruler one of his daughters for marriage and the dowry of a beautiful statue of Buddha when he was eight years old, and is said to have been blessed by Buddha (this statue, from our Tibetan blog, is one of the most auspicious Tibetan objects and resided in the Jokhang Temple). He rightfully determined that being united through marriage would prevent his kingdom from being conquered.

Secondly, when the British Empire imperialists came to the border of Nepal from their Indian territory, the Nepalese famed Gurkhas fought off an initial assault… but were facing inevitable conquest from the British.  Instead of fighting (and losing) the Nepalese proactively signed a peace treaty, agreeing to open trade and offering the, now revered, Gurkhas to fight in support of the British when requested.  I think maybe there is a lesson for our modern world in there somewhere!

Possibly most significant in the modern era, and an excitement that you could feel in the city, is the constitution which was signed the day before we arrived.  From an outside perspective, it feels poorly considered (they haven’t named how representation will be determined {population, land mass, economic size}, state capitals, state boundaries, and how the prosperous Kathmandu region will subsidize the impoverished rural Nepal regions).  There remain protests, primarily from the Hindu population that pushed to have Nepal officially be deemed a “Hindu” country (the only officially designated country in the world), but the drafters of constitution and four leading parties agreed to make the government secular (kids, that means non-religions, or what Americans refer to as “separation of church and state.”)  Of course, from the American experiment, we know democracy can be ugly at times, and is possibly more of a journey than a destination… one which we were excited to see the first step of in Nepal during our visit.  Like much of Asia, history is being written quite literally in Nepal’s case, during our lifetime!

That’s all on history from dad. More importantly are Brayden’s observations on our amazing experience exploring Kathmandu.