"Appearance, Perception, and Approach" by Alina Tamrakar

Alina Tamrakar is an architect and researcher who has worked extensively on post-earthquake heritage reconstruction in the Kathmandu Valley. She is also a founder of Baakhan Nyane Waa, an initiative that uses storytelling and folktales as a medium to connect others with oral heritage.

Fig. 1: The lamp holder on the wall in Kirtipur (Photo: Alina Tamrakar).

I took the examples of the lamp holder on the wall and the stone lying in the middle of the narrow street in Dhaugal and the different values they hold to different people as a starting point for intrigue. The lamp holder located on the blank wall in Kirtipur looks simple in appearance, but its location, without any other elements around, caught the attention of many of the participants of the summer school, including me. A native dweller then replied to our queries. One of the traditional dances of Kirtipur starts from there and this takes place once in twelve years. So, it held an important place for all of the natives. That was also evident later during the procession when women were seen lighting an oil wick in the holder and most of them respectfully bowing their head to it (ढोग्नु in Nepali). So, other than once in twelve years, when the dance starts from this building and when people light an oil wick during processions similar to this when it comes alive, it holds meaning to the natives. Meanwhile, for an outsider or a visitor without this context, the lamp holder’s presence makes you wonder what it is and why is it there like that.

Fig. 2: A stone lying in the streeet in Patan (Photo: Alina Tamrakar).

In the case of the stone, there are numerous such stones located in the middle or corner of a street, which people worship and venerate as a deity. However, the location of these idols may have changed as a result of street widening or changes in the urban form. The one in the picture from Dhaugal also lies in the middle of the street. As we were leaving from Patan House, a few of us dodged the stone and moved ahead. However, a few other, non-native friends were unaware and had to be informed about it, as they were unaware of its native significance and meaning. Often smeared with vermilion, these stones look mysterious at first glance.

From both of these cases, it is clear that the form and scale of these objects is not directly proportional to the value attached to them; likewise, the value and significance differ from a practitioner, to a researcher, and to a layperson. At the same time, these elements do not demand the great, or at least minimal respect and approach that majestic heritage structures do. 

"Guti as a sustainer of family, identity and heritage" by Thirangie Jayatilake

Thirangie Jayatilake holds a bachelor’s degree in literature and creative writing with a minor in mathematics from New York University and a master's degree in creative writing, publishing, and editing from the University of Melbourne. She has also worked as a research assistant for the HaP project.

The family Guti of the Baidyas. Photo: Thirangie Jayatilake.

In front of me were two padlocked wooden doors that guarded a Buddha statue inside, which only family members were allowed to open. Flanking the door on either side were wooden paintings of two Buddhist monks, Sariputra and Maudgalyana, reverent followers of Guatama Buddha. Above the door and the two monks was a string of Buddhist flags that ran along the entire north side of the Guti. The international Buddhist flag was designed in 1885 in Sri Lanka, where I’m from, and which was the country that was my connection to being in this particular 1200-year-old family temple in Patan.

14 years ago, my grandmother underwent cardiac bypass surgery. During the frequent hospital visits that followed, my mother discovered that the Nepali surgeon who operated on my grandmother had no Sri Lankan friends. Dr. Prem Baidya, a senior attending cardiovascular surgeon, had moved to Sri Lanka with his wife, Dr. Sushila, and their teenage daughter Angela. After a few family dinners, this Nepali family soon became our family friends.

My grandmother would live for another 10 years; our friendship with the Baidyas would last longer. When the Baidyas moved back to Nepal, our friendship travelled into virtual spaces, calling on messenger, interacting on social media, and watching Angela get married over zoom. When I was in Nepal in September 2022, Uncle Prem dropped by. He wanted to take me around Patan, where I was staying, and when I asked him to make suggestions, he paused.

“Actually, my ancestral home is just five minutes from here, we can walk there quickly.” He pointed his right arm towards the small pathway that ran at the edge of the homestay I was at. We walked to a 4 or 5-storey house that had been restored with cement and salvaged wooden windows and beams after the 2014 earthquake. Uncle Prem had grown up here. “Come,” he said, and walked towards what I assumed was the pathway back to where his car was parked.

We took two rights, and I found myself in a courtyard. We were at a temple that had a two-storeyed hallway that flanked the courtyard in a square. In the centre were two stone stupas and on each side of the stupas were two stone monuments with the Tibetan Dorjee on top.

Uncle Prem (Dr. Prem Baidya) discusses his family history with the author. Photo: Thirangie Jayatilake.

“This is my family Guti,” Uncle Prem explained as I looked at him in surprise.

Family-owned temples were a foreign concept to me, although it was clearly common practice in Newari culture. Uncle Prem nonchalantly continued to narrate the family history of this temple that had been established by his great-great-something grandfather 15 generations ago, while I was trying to process the fact that our family friends of over a decade could trace their family to over 1000 years ago, had a family temple that had been passed down through the centuries, had a physical site to pinpoint their ancestry to, and continued family traditions that had been established over the centuries.

The family of over 300 members now meets at least 3 times a year at this Guti, to enjoy a meal while catching up with the extended family. A family member sleeps over at the Guti every night, ensuring that the temple is guarded, and takes responsibility for opening the wooden doors that guard the Buddha statue in the morning. In this vast family of 300-plus, each member is assigned a day to stay over and is fined 100 rupees if they miss their turn.

The effort to conserve the temple and the Guti was shared by the whole Baidya family. The 2014 earthquake destroyed the existing structure almost completely. Only the stone stupas in the middle were not damaged. Reconstruction is an expensive task, evident by the long list of donor names etched onto a brass plate that hangs on the wall to the right of the Buddha statue.

The ancestor who established this temple, Uncle Prem elaborates, was a wealthy businessman who owned much of this area at the time. Over the centuries, the land had been divided and passed down. Some of that land was sold to finance the Guti reconstruction. From the old structure, only a few wooden windows and structures exist. The new, second-storey courtyard has been constructed with wood that bears no embellishments, in contrast to the beautiful carvings on the old wooden windows.

On one side of the courtyard, a hollow wall section houses a statue of another ancestor, uncle Prem’s grandfather’s brother’s son. Upon returning to Nepal after studying in India, he was appointed counselor to the king. Based on his experience in India, he also established Nepal’s first Buddhist organization. And although that organization is now no more, Uncle Prem first met Aunty Sushila at another Buddhist organization, despite having grown up in nearby neighbourhoods. (Uncle Prem mentioned that this Guti was one of the four larger Gutis in Patan, and days later, Aunty Sushila was quick to claim “my family Guti is bigger.” Having seeing Uncle Prem’s family Guti, she wanted me to see hers as well, and I can confirm, her family Guti, located closer to the Bagmati river, is indeed bigger)

In front of his great uncle’s statue, Uncle Prem explained that their surname Baidya is derived from the word “Vaidya,” for doctor. I felt gobsmacked at my own inability to have recognized the closeness of the word Baidya to Vaidya, which also means doctor in Sinhala, the Sanskrit-derived language spoken in Sri Lanka. Doctor genes clearly still run in this family, given the fact that Uncle Prem married Aunty Sushila, who is also a doctor, and their daughter Angela, who is also a doctor, married a doctor, while Uncle Prem’s older brother runs a pharmaceutical distribution company where his son works. Their 87-year-old doctor aunt still practices ayurvedic medicine and lives on ancestral land close to the Guti.

While Uncle Prem peppered his conversation with Sinhalese words he still remembered from his time in Sri Lanka, I wondered how their family dealt with the social dynamics of living in a different country for several years. How did they answer their family’s questions as to why they weren’t at the three annual family gatherings at the Guti, or why Uncle Prem had to pay the fine for not completing his duty of guarding the Guti for a night? What did they tell the cousins who wanted to know how Angela was growing up and why they wanted to move to Sri Lanka?

I carved out a new space in my mindscape for the Baidyas and the family history they carried within themselves that I didn’t have the slightest idea about, even though I had known them for years and had meals at their homes in Sri Lanka and Nepal (they now live in a modern home in Patan, a few minutes’ walk from their ancestral Gutis). I had new questions: Where do we carry our identities? How is family an identity and a place to which you can anchor yourself? What cultural heritage do you carry in your genes, bound through social interactions? How much of your cultural heritage are your family and their stories? How many layers of a person can you uncover, and what stories reside therein?

"The Sacred versus the Meaningful" by Shamik Chatterjee

Shamik Chatterjee is an assistant professor at the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA) in New Delhi, where he also attained his Master’s in Architecture from SPA’s Urban Design program.

Meaning is evolutionary and contextual. What was once sacred may become everyday over the passage of time. As the community evolves, so does the meaning associated with objects. This change of meaning has occurred most drastically with natural resources and our way of interacting with them. What was once nurtured and used with care becomes industrialized, and, given humanity’s trends, commodified. 

A well in Patan, with a hand pump in the foreground. Plastic jugs and terracotta pots holding potted plants are scattered on top of and to the side of the well. Photo: Shamik Chatterjee

Water is an intrinsic and vital part of our environment. It’s no surprise that, as a giver of life, it becomes revered and viewed as a divine blessing, in all cultures. Our interaction with water can be sacred and ritualistic. But it’s also functional and everyday. We need water for survival, and, hence, had imparted divinity to it in earlier times. This is why we still retain such a strong affinity for water, through spaces and elements like ponds, hitis, lakes, ghats, riverfronts, etc.

A space does not have to be ‘sacred’ to have ‘meaning’. The Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro served a communal function—its space was an everyday space for people across the city. However, even though we have not yet found evidence of any rituals associated with it, we can be sure the structure held significance to the people. 

The beauty of such spaces lies in their ability to mold to many uses. The ritual space becomes a space for children to play near the river, a space for women in a conservative society to gather and spend time with each other (without garnering said society’s ire), or even a place to sit and speak soft words to a forbidden lover without being forced to explain oneself. Thus, much like water takes the shape of the container it resides in, many of our most ‘meaning’-ful spaces in a city are those which are accommodating to all and flexible in their use. 

Similarly, the old well shown here may not have been ‘sacred’, but I am fairly certain that it held ‘meaning’ to the people who used it. The only evidence I offer is the decorative carving one sees going around the well. It shows a consideration for the well above only utility. Perhaps the families in this neighborhood would use the opportunity of coming to the well to gather water as a time to discuss news or developments in the neighborhood. The presence of a small shrine a little further away showcases the juxtaposition of the sacred and the everyday– a multi-functional space (as an aside, The hitis of Kathmandu are also elaborately carved).

Fast-forward through the ages and we find the hand pump. A manifestation of the effects of industrialization, the hand pump, while being in the same space and giving the same life-giving water, isn’t accorded the same “meaning” that the community once held for the well (or Tun). 

Fast-forward some more, and, in the same space, we find our twenty-first-century interactions with water—the 20L plastic storage jugs. Bereft of all meaning beyond cold utility, the jugs showcase our technological prowess and our philosophical devolution. Ironically, they are repurposed to provide a home for another fast-receding natural resource—to serve as containers for plants and small trees, used to beautify the old well.  

My fascination with waterscapes lies in the stark divide in how humanity treats water in the twenty-first century versus the sixteenth or seventeenth century, and this picture struck me as being emblematic of that. My gem is this image, showing the evolution of our interaction with a natural resource. 

"The Print" by Zhining Zhang

Zhining Zhang is pursuing her MA in “Cultural Heritage und Kulturgüterschutz” at the Heidelberg Center for Cultural Heritage (HCCH), University of Heidelberg.

My gem is a print that is posted on the door of almost every Kathmandu home. This print is an entity which contains a series of key elements such as the deity (Nag-Panchami), water, and the serpent. People in the Kathmandu Valley make garlands of cotton cloth, make serpents out of cow dung and rice flour and worship it with cow's milk, lava, barley, sesame, nuts and a number of other religious items. It is believed that if Nag-Panchami is properly commemorated every year, the Nags will provide the people with good health, wealth and blessings in their lives (Nepal eMarket, n.d.). Interestingly, although this print does not yet have a common name, it exists in every corner of Kathmandu and its worship is still well preserved in the local tradition after all these years.

Photo: Zhining Zhang

Photo: Zhining Zhang

Once, people would buy hand painted Nag-Panchami to hang on their walls and doors to seek blessings. However, due to the mass production of prints today, the viability of this hand-painted art has been squeezed out, as the price and the inability to mass produce make it more difficult to survive. Many Chitrakar families in the Kathmandu Valley, for example, who have been handpainting for generations, are now ambivalent about giving up this 'unprofitable' hand-painting business because of the mass production of prints. The only thing that keeps them going is what they called “heritage.”

The Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, which entered into force on 20 April 2006, contains five areas of intangible heritage, namely, oral traditions, performing arts, and social practices/rituals, practices concerning nature and the universe and traditional craftsmanship. However, an article (Diwasa, Bandhu and Nepal, 2007) points out that they are not complete in the Nepal context. Previously, the field of intangible cultural heritage was discussed under the term 'folklore'. In Nepal, folklore was understood to be divided mainly into two general areas: (a) Oral Traditions and Performing Arts and (b) Customary and Material Folklore. (Diwasa, Bandhu and Nepal, 2007). Of these, traditional skills of handicrafts such as these are not within the main areas of study of their intangible heritage. By reading this, I could not help but question why endangered craft traditions, such as those practiced by the Chitrakar families and passed down among the local population, were not identified as a priority for safeguarding and inscribed on the world as well as local intangible cultural heritage list. I tried searching for Nepal’s tentative list but found no nominations for such intangible cultural heritage, which leads me to wonder further whether this was related to UNESCO's The Criteria for Selection or to the local process and management of intangible cultural preservation.

Apart from this, I am also inspired by the shift in the material representation of this tradition in Kathmandu families hanging prints on their doors, i.e., from hand drawings to machine prints, and the idea that it could be also considered as an 'invention of tradition' over time, which also brings me to the concept of 'digital heritage'. In the future, when 3D printing and holographic projections become commonplace in homes, will there be new forms of 'printed matter’, such as holographic deities? If so, will they be accepted? And how do we deal with the problems that shall arise?

"Kathmandu's Cables" by Amanda Taylor

Amanda Taylor is a Ph.D. candidate at SOAS University of London.

Walking around Kathmandu, it is impossible not to see a jumble of cables seemingly precariously balanced atop a pole on almost every street. Some wires hang dangerously low as they crisscross the road. Others, severed, dangle without purpose. And others still are strung in loops, too long for now but perhaps of use in the future.

Photo by Amanda Taylor.

These cables are often cropped out of tourist photos. I’ve heard them described as utilitarian and an eyesore, not in keeping with the city’s old shrines, temples, historical monuments, and World Heritage sites. With the advent of fibre broadband, 5G, and other new technologies, it was always likely that these cables would one day begin to disappear, and now the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has announced that it is planning to remove its poles and move these cables underground (Prashain, 2022). Kathmandu’s streets will soon look very different.

These cables are representative of a particular period of life in the Kathmandu Valley. They very tangibly reflect the rapid population growth and urbanisation that has occurred in recent decades (see Thapa et al. 2008). Often invisible and buried underground elsewhere in the world, here these cables act as a reminder of the physical links between all of us and the places in which we live and work. Connecting private space with public space, they are testament to the relationships between friends, families, local shops and businesses, neighbourhoods, and much more beyond. These electric cables are so recognisable as part of the streetscape that in one art exhibition exploring social-political and environmental issues facing contemporary Nepal, artist Pablo Lopez used them to ‘suggest the entanglement and complicity of solving environmental issues’ (Bikapla Art Center, 2018).

Despite their ubiquity and conspicuity, little has been written about these cables. The prosaic, everyday nature of these cables seems to have resulted in them being overlooked. Vindegg’s (2022) ethnography provides a rare insight into the work of three NEA electricians as they go about their day. Vindegg captures the frustrations of the electricians who are under-resourced and over-worked, as well as those of the wider population, who view the NEA as deeply inefficient. In one example provided, a woman has her electricity meter fitted after waiting two years. Vindegg’s work is a reminder of the wider history that we may be on the brink of losing. Could these cables one day be forgotten entirely? Should they perhaps be considered heritage at risk?

At a cost of approximately Rs15 billion, the NEA hopes that by moving the cables underground, the risk of outages, theft, and electrocution will be reduced (Prashain, 2022). But other changes may of course be brought about as a result. How, for example, will family interactions transform when outages rarely occur? What might happen to those living below the poverty line who can no longer syphon off electricity? Will children be taught about the dangers of electricity when there is not such an overt visible reminder? The impact of the disappearance of these cables could be more profound than anticipated.

For many, Kathmandu’s cables undoubtedly will not constitute heritage. But in the context of their imminent disappearance, a number of urgent questions should be raised. UNESCO recognises industrial heritage and The International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage has undertaken a number of studies considering other types of infrastructure as heritage including, for example, the water and oil industries. With this in mind, a debate about what heritage is in this context should perhaps therefore take place. Will these cables be valued more once they are no longer there? Will something that today is considered an eyesore be viewed as a thing of beauty in the future? And, if we don’t want to retain heritage in its existing form, how might we ensure that it is still preserved?

“Cycles of Water” by Ina Schmidbauer

Ina Schmidbauer is pursuing an MA at University of Heidelberg in the program ‘Development, Environment, Societies, and History in South Asia’ (MA South Asian Studies) with a research emphasis on identity and everyday life in Nepal.

The steps leading to Mangah Hiti, with a bicycle in the foreground. Photo by Ina Schmidbauer (graphically modified)

Patan Durbar Square, when understood as space, offers a canvas for many different dynamics throughout the day. A whole range of people occupy the space at different times and shape it to be a particular place. While trying to observe this cycle, I noticed that people in the early morning and late evening come to fill up their water canisters. Many of them push an – oftentimes rather old and rusty – bicycle and have their own elaborate system on how to pack as many water canisters as possible onto their bicycle and still keep the vehicle steady while pushing it.

The people come to Mangah Hiti (मङ्ग: हिति), a square on a lower ground level with three water spouts. Mangah Hiti was built in 570 CE and is today used both for religious and everyday practices. The architectural structure holds the oldest preserved inscription around Patan Durbar Square and is in itself quite clearly tangible cultural heritage (NHDP, n.d.).

But what about the routinised coming to Mangah Hiti to bring home water? Through that, people – consciously or unconsciously – connect themselves with the place and contribute to its continuously re-evaluated meaning and thus place making. From this perspective, the bicycles and water canisters become threads which move throughout the neighbourhood, connecting public spaces and private homes, building a network of intangible cultural heritage.

"Brick by Brick: Stem of Time" by Divya Jain

Divya Jain is pursuing her master’s degree in Urban Design at the Delhi School of Planning and Architecture (Delhi SPA).

Fig. 1: Vision Through the lens of shapes formed by bricks. Photo: Divya Jain

Fig. 2: Brick covered in the spiritual layer. Photo: Divya Jain.

FIg. 3: Brick with the layer of a frame. Photo: Divya Jain.

“Thank you, kind sir,” said the child, a faint trace of British accent clearly heard. “Mummy, please take a picture,” he says, while facing towards the camera and posing and raising his hand for the handshake. The elderly man, surprised by his gesture, had tears in his eyes. Overwhelmed by the sudden respect, he returned the firm handshake and then brought forward his other hand on top of the boy’s head. A sign of blessing. This silent dialogue marked the space with its essence. Then I focused on myself. On how I could taste the sweetness of culture at the Patan Durbar Square, without even touching it. On how I could sample the freedom rushing through my veins, knowing that I am surrounded by the wilderness of that brown texture of Bricks.

Standing at the square, looking ahead, I could taste the energy felt by everyone that passed by. It often happens that certain colors and visions evoke our oral sensations. But certain spaces too? That too man-made? Do we really have that power to build something that gets our heart pumping in anticipation, that gets our mind racing to the point that we feel free and exhilarated? The most intimate experience of architecture is experienced with the subconscious feel of taste. You never know what you’ll discover.

 

A collage by the author, showing the many layers of brick making and brick architecture in the city of Patan.

 

 While contemplating my walks over the past six days, the one thing that struck me was the element of brick used in the urban space. The similar color of the bricks is integrated with the environment, giving a scope for the continuous preservation of the architecture while maintaining a harmony and visual continuity with its surroundings. The traditional brick architecture has evolved over hundreds of years into a uniform construction, reflecting and integrating the demands of culture, religion, and daily activities, as well as environmental considerations. Within the coherence of style and materials, building height, and elevation symmetry, there is a rich diversity of detail and decoration.

Fig. 4: Brick ornamentation giving an identity (left). Fig. 5: Brick merging with other elements (right). Photos by Divya Jain.

 The Kathmandu region has a very good type of clay which, when fired at a high temperature, produces fine quality red brick and tile, and the traditional brick molds produce bricks similar in form and size to modern bricks. Other types of mold have also been used for cornices and moldings. The best type of brick, used for front elevations, is known as chikā ape, and is smoothed and polished with oil before firing, giving it a shiny surface. The mortar of old houses is mainly clay, as in the past lime was not widely available in the valley. The walls can be as thick as 70 centimeters. In most houses, fired brick is used only for the surface of the walls, while the core of the walls is constructed of unbaked brick.

Traditional, Common, and Modern Brick Construction Techniques

When looking at construction techniques that are commonly used in Kathmandu Valley, we can roughly divide them into three eras, which I have chosen to call traditional, common, and modern.

Traditional: The vernacular Newar architecture consists of a three-layered brick wall with a wooden bear structure and wooden detailing. Traditionally, this style used wedges and perforations in the brick wall to join the wooden construction. The bears are joined in the comers to create a box, which allowed the constructed building to move as one entity.

Common: This construction consists of two layers of traditional fired bricks that are joined together with concrete ribbons and strengthened with concrete steel. The walls are usually not cladded, which creates a distinguished architectural expression that showcases the building's construction. This has been a common feature in the history of Nepalese architecture, where the wooden construction has been visible in the facade.

Modern: The construction methods used in Nepal today often consist of a brick wall that is framed with another material, such as wood, concrete, or steel. Many of the modern building techniques used in Kathmandu Valley use an interlocking brick that has better seismic capacity than the traditional fired brick. The brick wall is reinforced with horizontal and vertical rebars and filled with a concrete mix to stabilize the wall. This makes the brick wall stronger and less dependent on a primary structure. Some of the interlocking bricks allow for the concrete ribbons to be hidden within the wall, which creates a new architectural expression where the construction is less visible in the facade. The bricks can be used as the load bearing structure in smaller buildings but are often used together with either a steel or concrete structure.

 During a walk through the streets of Patan, headed by Rohit Ranjitkar, I realized that, post-earthquake, when an old house is reconstructed, it is not replaced by a soulless concrete and glass box. Rather, it is usually either constructed as a modern building with new brick façade, or with a traditional brick facade that is in harmony with its surroundings. This to me signifies the richness of the time periods referenced, as well the significant value that people still hold for the use of brick construction.

Away from the square, debris had silted onto the lane between two rows of tottering residences. Two young men were laughing among themselves, “I think we had better become architects now,” one said. “Forget about your science degree.” This made me question myself about the impression of the bricks because, when the display of nuances (like vendors inviting customers to shop, or the residents gossiping sitting outside) dies away, the building becomes an array of patient silence. It compels us to be aware of our own fundamental solitude. It not only carries the sounds of the present but also the echoes of past, which have become distant memories, only to be awakened by the silence of the very same space.

Image of brick architecture in Patan, showcasing two styles of bricks abutting each other. Photo: Divya Jain.

Therefore, isn’t it okay to consider this brick architecture as heritage, as a step towards the preservation of the culture and the reuse of the built environment?

 

Brick by brick, generation by generation. Photo: Divya Jain

 

References:

 Kirtipur: An Urban Community in Nepal: Its People, Town Planning, Architecture and Arts (First Edition). (n.d.). Araxus

“Diversity: Built Heritage vs. Modern Art” by Harish Arupula

Harish Arupula is an architect and currently pursuing his masters (M Arch.) in Urban Design at the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA) in New Delhi. His research interests are inclusive design of the public realm, placemaking, built- and nature interface, people-centric design, and design of sustainable neighborhoods.

“WATER MATTERS” Street art on a concrete wall adjacent to a temple. Patan, September 2022. Photo: Harish Arupula.

“WATER MATTERS” Street art on a concrete wall adjacent to a temple, with a man standing in front. Patan, September 2022. Photo: Harish Arupula.

While on a community heritage walk in Patan with the Rupesh Shresta team, I came across this diverse community assemblage in Patan, on one corner of a small open space, where we can experience both old heritage (in the form of a temple) and modern graffiti art on a concrete wall at the back of this temple. There, I stopped myself and observed the diverse transformation of cultural expressions of art and heritage through this space.

The people's cultural association in the community with heritage temples and heritage practices is still evidently strong, but at the same time, we can see community adaptation of new cultural arts into their modern life as per the change of time and lifestyle.

The transformation between these two cultural expressions of heritage and Modern art struck me in this place. The amalgamation of two diverse cultural art forms being at one place is unusual, especially in a space of traditional heritage, where people's community has a sense of association with and emotional belonging to their heritage and culture. That the community accepts modern graffiti art at the same time seems to me a rare combination within tight-knit cultural communities. The community adopted both cultural art forms, and in this way displays respect to the authentic traditional built heritage while also inviting modernity into their cultural spaces, without any clash between the cultural beliefs of the community.

We can see people's sense of recreation in this diverse space. There is a raised sitting space at the edge of the building, where people are sitting for their recreation and leisure around this diverse cultural heritage. Modern art that depicts people is accepted and adapted here. We can see people of all age groups gathering and having their sense of belonging to their traditional small temple spaces, mainly these spaces located at chowks (courtyards) of the community. The combination of a sense of recreation in open public space, a sense of belonging to their culture, and a sense of acceptance towards new street art trends makes this place culturally diverse and vibrant in nature.

The built heritage of this place, namely the temple, expresses its authenticity and cultural significance, with people's emotional association coming throughout the ages with their cultural beliefs and practices.

And the modern graffiti art on the concrete wall expresses the significance of water, which is a basic need of every human in the world and important to conserve for future generations. This diverse cultural space strongly portrays their own individual significance with the change of time. By observing diversity in both cultural art forms, people want to conserve their cultural built heritage and also conserve natural resources, such as water. This is depicted through their modern art expression to create awareness in the community.

"Bhagirath the Obscured One" by Rohit Dev Manandhar

Rohit Dev Manandhar is an MA student in Museology and Buddhist Collections at Lumbini Buddhist University, Nepal. His research interests include documentation of and research about cultural objects.

The image of Bhagirath is a common sight around Kathmandu Valley, especially below the sunken water spouts (hiti). Hiti are a system of complex water distribution systems devised during the Licchavi period (4th to 9th century), conveying filtered water from the vicinity of the valley to the inhabited core neighborhoods, generally for household purposes.

According to the popular mythology, a king from Ikshvaku Dynasty learned about the dreadful endings of his forefathers. He then decided to bring Ganga (the holy river Ganges) to earth, for which he did hard penance because only Ganga could liberate the ashes of his ancestors to attain Nirvana (mokshya). However, Ganga agreed to descend from heaven to Earth. It is Bhagirath who is credited for the initiation; hence, we see the deep association of Bhagirath with water spouts around the Kathmandu Valley.

A relief sculpture of Bhagirath below a water spout (hiti). Photo: Rohit Dev Manandhar.

The Licchavi were rulers of North India (where the Ganges River flows) in a region called Vaishali, from where they fled to Kathmandu, which could be attributed with their deep link to the Ganges River and Bhagirath. A few tributaries of the Ganges can be traced to Nepal and the eventual terminus is the river Ganges in India, which has a momentous importance for the Hindu religion as well. In the Kathmandu valley, the installation of the image of Bhagirath underneath stone sprouts seems to be favoured, and was continued during the reign of Malla rulers as well.

 The particular image of Bhagirath shown above is from a stone sprout at ground level near the Bagh Bhairab temple of Kirtipur. Such water sprouts are called Jaru hiti which is not a part of the distribution channel, but a manual filling system for travelers to drink from. These used to be filled by the community every morning when they fetched water from the well or sunken water sprouts. The image of Bhagirath that can be seen below the tap is somewhat atypical, as he cannot be seen holding the conch shell, his iconographic feature. However, the positionality of the image below the tap allows us to identify it as him. Lying on the busy crossroads of Kirtipur, where many travellers doubtless cross, the positionality of this Jaru Hiti could also be justified. Today, the hole from where the water was dispensed has been replaced by a modern tap; thus, an aspect of modernization and practicality could also be observed. During the old days, a wooden stick was inserted in the opening, which clogged the pipe and prevented water from flowing when not in use.

The reason for selecting the image of Bhagirath as a gem was to accentuate its prominence and interpretation, as it rarely receives the consideration of bystanders because of its position below the intricately and elaborately carved stone sprouts. These spouts seem to hide and minimize the focal point of this relief sculpture of Bhagirath and the meaning it conveys. With many restaurants, hotels, and homes trying to blend modern amenities with traditional art forms as fusion, it has become a norm for conventional water taps to be replaced by small replicas of hiti. However, they do not incorporate certain ‘neglected’ elements, such as the image of Bhagirath. To select Bhagirath as a yaksha figure on the hiti would be fascinating, as Bhagirath is not just a decorative motif or a human figure.

References:

The Creatures of the Rain Rivers, Cloud Lakes: Newars Saw Them, So Did Ancient India by Gautama V. Vajracharya, 2009

"People, Plants, and Patan" by Nija Maharjan

Nija Maharjan is an illustrator and freelance graphic designer. She studies at the Kathmandu University School of Arts.

On our heritage walk in Patan, I kept on noticing the Greens peeking from one place and another, as if they were following me on the walk, refreshing my childhood memories of the place and making me nostalgic. While I remembered seeing most of these plants from when I was a child, I only could recall a few of their names because most of them would be referred to as ghyaan (weed). There is a clustered wildflower that looks like a cauliflower that would be used so much during our playtimes; I hoped I could encounter them, but unfortunately, I didn’t, and it frustrates me that I don’t even know its name to search for and ask around.

 

These private land spaces are called “k: ban: (kein- vegetables, ban- floor, bu- field). They were traditionally used to grow vegetables; some of them are now left unattended, to be encroached upon by shrubs and weeds. Photo: Nija Maharjan.

 

I was born and raised in Patan, a town with rows of old houses carving narrow alleys that would open up to wide courtyards with wells and stone spouts, temples and baahaas that house gods and goddesses. Amongst them lived the Greens, some growing wildly out of cracks and unattended lands, and some cared for and protected. The greenscapes, together with other architectural spaces, contributed to the design of this cityscape.

A building encroached by plants. Photo: Nija Maharjan.

Finding gems has been an interesting experience for me, as I discovered more ways in which people, plants, and Patan interact. The Newar settlements are arranged in a manner where people usually live in closed communities, and they have agricultural land on the outskirts of the city. Plants have thus been central to their life, not only for food but also for culture, religious practices, medicines, and aesthetics.  Having said that, the architecture of the Newar houses doesn’t seem to have designed designated spaces for having plants indoors or even on the roofs, as they were covered with sloped tiles with a small opening only. I am guessing the concept of planting plants in pots and caring for them came much later only as the word gamalaa used for “pots,” is a loan word. Only the common public spaces and private unused lands must have contributed to the greenscape of this city.

What would have been moss-carpeted walls with ferns popping out from cracks and the sidewalks with wildly growing greens are barely seen, as most structures have been replaced by concrete and plaster. Urbanization has changed the face of Patan drastically in the past few decades; along with it, the percentage of greens has dwindled. Despite the reality of spaces being converted into building structures and prevalence of concrete spaces, people have found alternative and innovative ideas for including plants in their surroundings. As we walked around the city, we could see planters and recycled jars used for plants and placed in public spaces and around the neighborhood.

People using cement rings to hold plants. Photo: Nija Maharjan.

People using water jars and terracotta pots to hold plants. Photo: Nija Maharjan.

I believe their presence in place is as important as other tangible heritages, for the fact that indigenous people include them in medicinal and religious matters. These plants are native to the place and define the culture, rituals, and stories of the people living here. When I recall all the festivals, each of them requires different leaves, flowers, or plants, and they used to be available around the neighborhood or in the fields. Because it is hard to find the aforesaid plants, people have adapted the rituals accordingly. Now that I think of the availability of those plants at that time of the year, it must also have influenced the rituals of that occasion.

 

Leaves of various plants growing around the neighborhood are used for various religious rituals. Photos: Priyanka Adhikari.

While these green spaces have been prevalent in the places and participation in the lives of people, they are still not given much consideration. I have an understanding that the study of the native plants in relation to the people and place of Patan would unfold beautiful stories and important insights.

"Thresholds of Kathmandu Valley: The Openings" by Nandja Chopra

Nandja Chopra is a trained architect, currently pursuing her master’s in Urban Design at the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA) in Delhi.

Fig. 1: A journey through the thresholds of the Kathmandu Valley take one from the 19th to the 21st century. Photos taken by Nandja Chopra.

The doors and windows of the Kathmandu Valley tell a different story of its heritage. The doors are not just entrances to homes, but also a member or rather a separator of various realms of public and private areas. They weave a complex network and bind together various thresholds of public realms, religion, culture, and people. The doors have evolved over the 17th to 20th centuries, and much older doors are now hard to find, but there are a few places that still retain this heritage. Sometimes such doors are tucked away in small lanes, many a time preserved by people and put on display in their homes, while others have found a new home even in the localized museums of the valley.

The doors and windows are usually made out of timber, brought from outside the valley. The doors overlooking the streets have frames with symbols carved on them; these symbols are pertinent to the householder. These openings are also a tool to understand the archaeological evidence and dating of the buildings.

Fig. 2: The liminal doors and thresholds to the valley.

Elaborate openings, like san jhyah, depict Mughal influences. The central windows have wooden lattices (tiki jhyahlarger), and they are larger and have more elaborate carvings. This is particular to the Newar architecture of Nepal. The windows extend themselves into the balcony with lattice work in front, sloping outwards from the bench to meet the edge of the roof. The doors, on the other hand, are later additions to the morphology of the urban form of buildings. Since the 19th century, the usage of the ground floor has changed from storing animals to weaving. Since weaving required more light and ventilation, the use of doors on the ground floor was introduced. The entrance door on the front wall had a kumara mandala in front of it, while the rear area needed access to kheba, the backyard or garden.

The openings in the residential units and urban morphology were a way of social organization of the Newar community. These liminal artifacts are particular and typical to this region. Rapidly changing times are likewise changing these urban artifacts, creating a need for them to be mined, preserved, and cataloged.

Figure 3: The doors and windows as urban thresholds, leading from public to private and in-between public realms.

References:

Kirtipur: An Urban Community In Nepal: Its People, Town Planning, Architecture and Arts (First Edition). (n.d.). Araxus.

“Mandala in Newar Culture: Perceiving the Cosmos in Everyday Life” by Durlav Rayamajhi

Durlav Rayamajhi is an anthropologist studying Nepali culture, heritage, and myths.

Most of the cultural experts at the summer school pointed out that the Newar community follows both Buddhist and Hindu principles. In all my visits, I always wondered what could symbolize this unique aspect of Newar culture. The answer I got was mandala.

What is a mandala? In his encyclopedic entry on the mandala, author J. J. Mark (2020) writes, “a mandala is an artistic representation of higher thought and deeper meaning designed to focus one's attention on spiritual, emotional, or psychological transformation. Originating from the Hindu scripture Rig Veda (1500-500 BCE), mandala is a very popular art form that many religions around the world, i.e., Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Shintoism, used as symbolic representations to give expressions to different intangible meanings and ideas of a higher being or cosmos. In Sanskrit, ‘mandala’ means circle, representing the cycle of life. In Buddhism, mandala is formed by two words, manda meaning principle and la meaning water that flows between that principle, creating a boundary.”

Intangible elements of culture usually find expression in tangible forms. In the case of Newar culture, the intangible beliefs and ideas about the cosmos, spirituality, and life have found their expression in the form of mandalas with different shapes, geometric designs, and symbolism.

A Kumar Mandala. This and all photos to follow were taken by Durlav Rayamajhi in the Kathmandu Valley.

A mandala set into a tiled floor.

A Kumar Mandala.

The use of mandalas varies as well. A mandala can be a simple decoration on the wall, a painting, the marker of entry to a Newar house (also known as a Pekhalchi/Pekhlati/Pikhlakhu).  The many stupas such as Swayambhunath and Boudhanath, temples such as Kasthamandap, Bagh Bhairab, and many others throughout the valley use mandalas to design these structures. During the Malla period, the whole of the Kathmandu valley was known as the Nepal Mandala, denoting the significance of this form. Rajjan Chitrakar, quoting Tiwari (1989), writes, “some type of plan must have been required for a layout of larger towns of the Malla period and [this] suggests that the concept was derived from a Vaastu Purusha Mandala” (2020). Niels Gutschow writes, “a study of Bhaktapur city suggests that the town has been laid in the form of a Mandala, reflecting the cosmic order transformed into the reality of an urban space” (1993). Meanwhile, J. Gray (2009) writes, “I describe how domestic space, configured in everyday activities as a mandala, is the medium through which abstract cosmological ideas are given tangible form.”

Kumar Mandala

Bajra Mandala

Swayambhunath Stupa Structural Plan

The mandala became a ‘gem’ for me because it embodies many tangible and intangible ideas of Newar culture or the culture of Kathmandu valley. In its smallest form, it represents the entrance to a building, whether it is a temple, house, or stupa, and in its largest form, it represents the entire universe that again cycles back to the day-to-day activities and beliefs of people, completing the cycle.

References:

Chitrakar, R. (2020). “Morphology of traditional towns and the organisation of neighbourhood public spaces in the Kathmandu Valley.” In Revisiting Kathmandu Valley’s Public Realm: Some Insights into Understanding and Managing Its Public Spaces. Nova Science Publishers (pp.1-28).

Gray, J. (2009). “Where truth happens: The Nepali house as Mandala.” Anthropologica, 195-208.

Gutschow, N. (1993). “Bhaktapur: Sacred patterns of a living urban tradition.” Studies in the History of Art, 31, 163-183.

Mark, J. J. (2020, October 6). “Mandala.” World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved October 15, 2022

"Wells" by Mohd Asif Ansari

Mohd Asif Ansari is an architect and currently pursuing his master’s (M Arch.) in Urban Design at the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA) in New Delhi.

A well in Patan with a pump and spout and potted plants on top. Photo: Shamik Chatterjee.

Groundwater has become a major natural resource contributing to the water supply system in the Patan (Lalitpur) district of Nepal. The people of Patan have been using groundwater for ages through dug wells and stone spouts. Usually, groundwater is replenished during the monsoon season, a period of heavy rainfall. Due to urbanization, surface infiltration of water has been vastly reduced, while consumption of groundwater is ever-rising. Hence, the water table has gone down over the years. Since many people rely on groundwater as there is no drinking water supply or pipeline system in the central areas, the traditional water supply system through dug wells and stone spouts needs to be preserved.

When I was roaming around the streets of Patan, I saw the wells that are present at the major cross-junctions of the streets, along with a temple. The junctions act as a public square for community gatherings. The wells are designed at major junctions of streets, along with temples, and play an important role by serving the community with fresh groundwater. We can revitalize the old wells system and use them to recharge the groundwater table.

 

A well at a prominent cross-junction in central Patan with a temple behind it. Photo: Mohd Asif Ansari.

 

References:

“Feasibility of recharging aquifer through rainwater in Patan, Central Nepal,” By Hiterndra Raj Joshi and Suresh Das Shrestha; Bulletin of the Department of Geology, Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur, Kathmandu, Nepal. DOI: 10.3126/bdg.v11i0.1541

"Instrument Manufacture in Saugal" by Julia Meckl

Julia Meckl is an MA student at University of Heidelberg in the program ‘Development, Environment, Societies, and History in South Asia’ (MA South Asian Studies) and is a research assistant within Heritage as Placemaking. Her current research focuses on the multiple social lives and contested place of the nagarā kettledrums in the Limbu society of Eastern Nepal.

 

The shop’s advertisement in the alley shows an old photograph of a gate made of drums, created for the visit of the British Queen Elizabeth II to Nepal in 1961. Photo by Julia Meckl.

Nestled in an alley departing from Saugal Tol in Patan lies a true gem. Advertising with the promise “We repair all kinds of instruments,” the Nepali Sanskritik Baja Udyog (Nepali Cultural Instrument Factory) of Hari Lal Kulu and his son Ashish Kulu is both workshop and a cabinet of musical wonders. Stuffed to the ceiling with instruments of all kinds and sizes, old and new – from the pañcai bājā and Newar dhime bājā ensembles, to Tamang ṭuṅgna (a type of lute) and drums from all corners of Nepal and beyond, to classical sitar, European harps and violins, ukuleles and electric guitars. Instruments are built, mended, and may be borrowed. The workshop and its collection manifest the skill trained and transmitted across seven generations of the Kulu family running the shop. Knowledge has been passed down hands-on, from father to son. Today, the shop is both well known to a local audience of musicians and musical groups, as well as to international customers. It is a place where aficionados meet and connect, and where various craftspeople collaborate in the making of an instrument.

According to Ashish Kulu, their family migrated from India many generations back to provide the Malla palace with their musical services. In the past, the whole alley was lined with one workshop after another of Kulu instrument makers.

While drums play a central role in Newar religious and social life, in daily rituals as well as in the festivals, as anthropologist Richard Widdess (2013, 108-9) writes, the drum makers themselves have suffered social stigmatization through their handling of animal skins, thus accrediting them with “water-unacceptable” caste status. The lack of recognition for the profession has made it unattractive for younger generations to continue the craft in the recent past. However, the example of this at once cosmopolitan and deeply rooted workshop in Saugal shows that instrument makers themselves are effecting changes in their social recognition and are being recognized as preservers of Nepal's musical heritage (Ghimire 2017).

The shop nowadays assembles a musical pluriverse, with each instrument having its own transcultural and migratory history. Likewise, each instrument tells stories of who has played and who will play it, for what kinds of purposes and occasions, and who listens. Above the shop, instrument lessons are taught, and musicians can use the space for spontaneous jams or band practice. Thus, the shop becomes a living and truly vibrant archive of urban musical life, defying the separation of “modern” vs “traditional,” and national or ethnic compartmentalization.

A special curiosity that caught my attention at Nepali Sanskritik Baja Udyog are the miniatures of Nepali instruments. While they seem to be only for decoration as they are not functional instruments, they embody the shop’s dedication to musical heritage conservation. These miniatures convey an attachment to specific instruments and their sounds. They connect us to tunes that we know, that are part of our aesthetic experience, that we might personally identify with ourselves, or with other people and places. In this way, the miniatures contribute to make the workshop a space of archiving and exhibiting musical heritage, of playful and skillful innovation of tradition.

The drum makers’ workshop, with mādal, khiñ, dhime, damāhā and nagārā drums. Photo by Julia Meckl.

The miniature instrument workshop. Photo by Julia Meckl.

References:

Ghimire, Sandhya. 2017. “Saving the Sounds: How Is a Family Business Preserving Ancient Nepali Music?” Online Khabar, Oct. 25. Accessed Sept. 2022. https://english.onlinekhabar.com/saving-the-sounds-how-is-a-family-business-preserving-ancient-nepali-music.html

Widdess, Richard. 2013. Dāphā: Sacred Singing in a South Asian City. Music, Performance and Meaning in Bhaktapur, Nepal. Farnham: Ashgate.

"Pikha Lakhu" by Madina Rai

Madina Rai is an Assistant Researcher at Social Science Baha, Kathmandu. She holds double master’s degrees in English literature and anthropology, and her research interests include gender, migration, indigeneity, and social justice.

Fig. 1: Pikha Lakhu made of metal found in Patan area. Photos by Madina Rai.

A Pikha Lakhu is a small, usually ‘mandala’[1]-shaped ritual site, a sanctum, and a place of daily worship for the Newar household. Etymologically, Pikha Lakhu means ‘in the front of the door’ — that the site is situated directly in the front of the door or the main entrance of the house. The Newars typically start their day and the ritual only after worshiping at Pikha Lakhu. They believe that it is the ‘Kumar’, brother of lord Ganesha, that they worship at Pikha Lakhu. This practice of worshipping at Pikha Lakhu is believed to have started during the Malla period.

Pikha Lakhu can be found in various shapes, designs, and materials. Around Kirtipur, one of the oldest Newar settlements, they are mostly carved on stones, marbles or on the open soil at the threshold. In the Patan area, they are made of metal, mostly brass, which was provided by the Patan municipality to each Newar household as part of the Municipality’s efforts to preserve the rich culture and heritage around the area.

In the Newari culture, Pikha Lakhu carries a range of meaning, both in terms of space and time. From a socio-symbolic perspective, it stands as a demarcation between public and private space. It also marks personal moments of transition in the life of the members of the family, from wherein they enter into a new world socially as well as spiritually.

Liminal Space

Fig. 2: At the Pikha Lakhu, the last 45th-day rite for the deceased is performed by a family at Pimbahal, Patan. Photo by Madina Rai.

Drawing on Arnold v. Gennep’s and Victor Turner’s concept of ‘rite of passage’, Pikha Lakhu signifies ‘liminal space’, the threshold where life altering transformations take place. For example, a bride formally becomes a member of her new family after stepping on the Mandap created upon Pikha Lakhu. Her journey of transition into a new world, a new role, starting from leaving her birth home and to embracing a new family, culminates and ends here after the ritual of treading upon this very sanctum.

When a daughter comes of age, the initiation ceremony, Bel Bibah, Gufa Nikalne is performed right in this sanctum. As the ‘puja’ is performed, the daughter is considered to have entered a new phase of adulthood and is allowed to participate in almost every activity that is suitable for a young adult woman.

Similarly, the last rite for the deceased after the death of a family member is also performed here. After the mortuary ritual, the deceased is believed to transcend into the other world, from where there is no coming back in any form.

 A Boundary Between Private and Public Space

Pikha Lakhu also works as a boundary marker. It stands to define as to where the public space ends for the outsiders and from where the private space starts. It draws an (un)discernible line for the outsiders that they are not to transgress and encroach upon private land/space of others, while for the insiders, the family members, it gives a sense of safety and ownership of a private space belonging to the other side of the line.

Fig, 3: Pikha Lakhu in Kirtipur, a Newar settlement, are mostly designed and hand-carved on the stones and marble. Photos by Madina Rai.

A Symbolic Shrine

 Pikha Lakhu sits at the heart of the cultural life of the Newar community, at the centre of which is sheltered a common ancestral god. In some Newar traditions (such as Newars from Bhaktapur), when a family splits, they are not allowed to establish a separate Pikha Lakhu in their place. The new family must visit the old house to perform every rite and ritual that is to be observed at the auspices of Pikha Lakhu. As such, from the perspective of the sense of family and kinship, Pikha Lakhu stands as a sacred shrine where the clan/tutelary god resides, binding together the families of the Newars.

Pikha Lakhu, therefore, carries a central space in Newari culture. It not only guides their everyday religious and cultural activities, but offers a philosophical anchor to the universe called life itself. It may be argued that it is through the material, spiritual, and symbolic presence of (in)tangible heritage such as Pikha Lakhu that the Newars are able to keep their identity, the sense of who they are, alive. Likewise, what is also kept intact, amidst struggles and challenges, is the sense of ownership of the ancestral land in the face of relentless urbanisation and globalisation.

 

Fig. 4: A ritual, part of the annual Paro Bhoye procession before the Mohani festival, is performed on a Pikha Lakhu in Kirtupur.

 

Notes:

[1] A figure, usually circular, representing the universe in Hindu and Buddhist symbolism.

"Stairway to the Temple: Vernacular Lessons in Urban Design" by Diego Jaimes Niño

Diego Jaimes Niño is an architect and an MA candidate in “Cultural Heritage und Kulturgüterschutz” at the Heidelberg Center for Cultural Heritage (HCCH).

We visited Kirtipur as part of our summer school in September 2022. On the night of the 24th, the group split up to observe ritual processions by musicians (drum players, flute players, dancers), many in Newar attire, fulfilling the ritual lighting of the Ita. From the different neighborhoods of the city, they came together to pay respect to the Indrayani Devi temple. In the final phase of the procession, we crossed an urban door and came to a monumental public space built around a staircase. This is my gem, as I find in it a legacy of vernacular lessons on urban design. It is a built heritage site, charged with knowledge and practices of intangible heritage.

This place goes downhill and connects the Dyo-dwa-kha (Heaven’s Door) with the temple. The door is built in Newari style, wood and brick, with little ornamentation and in a lovely proportion.

Author’s sketch of the Kirtipur staircase and its surroundings. Click to expand.

The central staircase, a “staircase of a ramp” (or rampa caballera in Spanish), comes from a design that was thought to allow the circulation of animals, such as horses or goats. Its design is simple and rational: slanted, long steps and soft counter steps facilitate a slow pace of walking and enjoying the view, or entail the slow, rhythmic pace of a procession. The purity of the staircase’s design stands in contrast with the diversity of urban gestures that happen on its sides: terraces, gardens, other staircases, benches under gorgeous, enormous trees, phalcās, planters, walls, and small squares. Each of the elements flows into the other organically, with smooth joins between them. The assembly appears effortless. It is a kind of space that is difficult to accomplish by design: years, needs, and quite probably the will of the owners of the surrounding houses have given it the quality it affords.

A second outstanding quality of the place is the view: In the foreground there is the central temple, surrounded by various buildings. Further away, there is what can still be seen of the landscape of the valley behind the recent constructions around the temple. The space is a tribune to see the city, and to witness the rituals during the dates of adoration. One may look down to see the temple or sideways to the people coming up and down the stairway. It is a center of the city, and much of its activity is related to intangible cultural heritage.

The staircase and surrounding public space in Kirtipur. Photo credit: Diego Jaimes Niño. Click to expand.

Stairs are among the most important elements of architecture. This place remembered me of the Piazza di Spagna in Rome, and of the monumental stairways of Aztec, Toltec, and Maya pyramids. Although the similarities may not be formal, the relationship they have with the surrounding city and with the sacred are analog.

Although I found no pictures of the staircase that are more than thirty years old, there are old photos of the temple available. They show the place in a rural context: it is known that the temple was built outside of the city’s doors. This puts in evidence that the urban character of the place has developed during the last fifty to sixty years, along with the dense growth of population in the Kathmandu Valley. It is an example of how this city grows, and how “older” heritage gives place to new practices of self-construction.

References:

“Eselstreppe”. RDK Labor Wiki.

Shokoohy, Mehrdad; Shokoohy, Natalie H.: Sagar Shrestha, “Sukra: Street Shrines of Kirtipur,” in

Nepal: As long as the sun and the moon endure. London: Araxus Books, 2014.

Banadur Tapa, Rajesh; Murayama Yuji; Shaliya, Ale: “City Profile: Kathmandu.” In Cities, The

international journal of urban policy and planning. Volume 25 Number 1, February 2008.

"The Vanishing Green Heritage of the Kathmandu Valley" by Corinna Mascherin

Corinna Mascherin is pursuing her MA in Transcultural Studies at the Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies, Germany.

In the shadow of the heritage preservation efforts that address the man-made crafts, architecture, and intangible traditions of the Kathmandu valley, there is another kind of heritage that is largely being overlooked and even threatened by the same city authorities in the name of progress. Trees and green areas are a rare sight in Kathmandu. The rapid urban sprawl that has soared in Nepal since the 1980s has caused large areas of rich, arable land in the valley to be covered in concrete, and plants have been sacrificed for the expansion of building space to meet the demands of a growing urban population (Taylor 2019). In 2019, the Kathmandu Ring Road Improvement Project announced its plan to cut down over two thousand trees along the Kalanki-Balaju-Maharajgung road, in order to expand the road from three lanes to eight, in a project funded by the Chinese government (Ojha 2019). The protests by environmentalists, activists, and urban planners of the valley were to little avail. As a result, there is hardly any consistent urban vegetation that can alleviate the ecological, health, and psychological pressures put on the city and on its inhabitants by the relentless traffic.

The few surviving trees seem to stand in the midst of the poisonous artificial environment as tenacious heroes (Fig. 1), yet the encroachment of built space and motorways all around them underlines their severe fragility. Lone-standing trees, like the one in the picture, are usually ‘transformed’ into chautari, rest stops where people can sit on a stone or concrete platform built around their trunks. Chautari found along trekking trails often function as rest points and geolocational references for travelers, while those rising in villages and cities are important public spaces, used for various purposes (to relax, to wait, to chat with friends, to sell products, etc.). As a public space, they are used mostly by men (many women prefer sitting on the stoop of their houses), while young people in the cities have grown used to hanging out in cafés instead. The trees of chautari are usually peepal (or bodhi) trees, which are held in high regard and often are the site of religious worship, a fact that also (usually) prevents them from being cut. Nevertheless, there have been reports of chautari hosting holy trees being brought down to enable road expansion works, as well (Dhakal 2019).

Lonely tree at an intersection in Thamel. Photo credi: Corinna Mascherin.

Many residents, especially of the older generations, complain about the disappearance of the chautari (ibid.). Besides being linked to personal memories and urban ecologies, chautari have an important cultural presence: they have been witness to several festivals, protests, and fasts unto death, and have left their mark even in traditional Nepali music and Nepali pop Nepali songs (ibid.). The removal of trees on public ground has also impacted devotional practices, as reported by a woman who now grows her own trees in her home to worship (ibid.). On the other hand, city authorities are trying to tackle public discontent with the situation by offering to replace the old chautari with “smart” ones, which will consist of public spaces with new temples, drinking water fountains, and even power points to charge one’s phone (ibid.).

Reading about such plans, I can’t help but think about the global trend of building so-called “smart” and sustainable cities, where top-down development promises to build functional public spaces, while usually being oblivious about what it really takes for space to attract and be enjoyed by people, and to be truly public. Couldn’t the city authorities recognize the value of existing, traditional public places—and of trees as makers of public space—and work for their preservation, rather than pursuing heritage-erasing globalized ideals of development? While historical buildings have long been recognized and protected as UNESCO World Heritage sites, lots of culturally and historically relevant elements, such as trees and chautari, have fallen off the radar of heritage preservation. If only plants, too, started to be considered part of a vanishing heritage of the Kathmandu valley, the city would enjoy not only more fresh air and pleasant sights, but also more places where people can rest from the hustle and bustle of the traffic, and connect with each other as well as with the other species with which whom they would share their living environment. Exactly like other kinds of tangible heritage, plants can attract people around them, provide a space for the unfolding of everyday life or ritual practices, and be the object (and subjects) of emotional, cultural, and biological bonds with the creatures among whom they live.

Special thanks to Muna Gurung and to Stefanie Lotter for their comments and suggestions.

"The Prayer Circles" by Binita Magaiya

Binita Magaiya is a research assistant in the Heritage as Placemaking project and a prospective PhD candidate at Social Science Baha, Kathmandu.

The notion that all good and bad deeds come in ‘full circles’ is represented in my gem through an examination of two religious visual elements: ritual bells, ubiquitous in the Kathmandu Valley and commonly rung to alert the gods to one’s prayers, and the Tibetan Buddhist prayer wheels known as mane (or mani), found at some Buddhist sites in the region. My ‘gem’ in the Urban Heritage Mining summer school discusses the presence of these heritage elements (the bells and the mane) and questions how they may speak to practices of prayer and accommodation more broadly.

Given the diversity of sociocultural context and religious practice, the idea of prayer can be ambivalent for many believers. For instance, someone from one religious background or geography may not always be aware of how to pray in a new location or context, and there may emerge a desire to pray “correctly” in order to not offend anyone else. This is fascinating in the context of Nepal, where there is sometimes a very broad or very thin demarcation line between Hindu and Buddhist practices, as well as diversity in practice between some ethnic groups in Nepal and their neighbors. For example, Newa believers generally must remove any type of head coverings before praying to the god, whereas in many religious traditions in India, a head covering is recommended for prayer. Prayer, and the heritage elements that accompany its practice, are diverse.

During our heritage tour to Chilancho in Kirtipur, one element clearly striking to me was the integration of two manes in between the bell posts (Fig. 1). The accommodation of the manes in such a fashion, with a smaller version of a ‘typical’ Newa bell on top, is intriguing. At first, I thought the bell’s presence perhaps reflects that we were in a close-knit Newa neighborhood, which has a strong tendency toward Hindu religious visual elements. Upon further investigation of the appearance of these manes, we saw they were placed there in the 1990s, at which time a larger bell may have been changed out for a smaller one to accommodate the new mane. In the twentieth century, Kathmandu saw an influx of Tibetan refugees who set up their homes in nearby areas. Following the Tibetan uprising in 1959, thousands of Tibetans fled their homeland. Many fled to Nepal or via Nepal to India. The trickle into Nepal has continued since then. Currently, Nepal hosts around 20,000 Tibetan refugees who live in twelve designated camps in Kathmandu and Pokhara.

Fig. 1: The Chilancho Stupa in Kirtipur, Kathmandu Valley, with the combination of bells and the mane/prayer wheels, supported by the same wooden structure, visible in the foreground. Photo credit: Binita Magaiya

Fig. 2: The Changu Narayan Temple, Bhaktapur (Kathmandu Valley). The bell at the front of the temple (bottom right) is of a much more typical size and proportion for the region.

In the Chilancho Stupa in Kirtipur, the function of both the prayer wheels/manes and the bell is similar in both religious and emotional contexts. They each serve as a tool to send prayers to the gods. However, the scale and proportion of the bell were considerably downsized within the structure to accommodate the manes. Rohit Manandhar, one of our fellow students in this summer school, shared his thoughts on this phenomenon, saying that he sees this as an act of vandalism. The placing of a not-so-unknown object such as a mane within a different foreground forcibly changes its whole proportion. This is most noticible when one compares the bell at Chilancho Stupa with the bell at another temple without mane, such as those at the Changu Narayan Temple in Bhaktapur (Fig. 2). Additionally, the whereabouts of the original (larger) bell at the Chilancho Stupa remain unknown, bringing notions of accommodation, acquisition, and recognition into the foreground.

When is one’s act of faith perceived as vandalism by the other? While in Kirtipur, a similar thought occurred to me upon examining the area around a chiba (a small, stupa-like monument or sanctuary, also called a chaitya) and a nearby pati (a raised, arcaded platform, also known as a phalcā). Today, this particular pati is missing both columns and a supported roof, suggesting a similar fate of alteration and accommodation over time. Behind the chiba, two adjacent walls on either side of a doorway have been punctured to accommodate mane (Fig. 3). The question of tolerance remains with us while we went about our procession route in Kirtipur, but such interventions of individual faith mechanisms definitely affect the immediate surrounding. Could such additions be seen as religious tolerance or vandalism? The question remains, but however we define the “gem” in the context of our summer school, such interventions are definitely a part of the rich cultural diversity we all have come to accept, and through which we have grown.

Fig. 3: A chiba in Kiripur (foreground) and pati (background). The mane prayer wheels, inserted into the side of a door frame, are visible in the brick wall behind the chiba. Photo credit: Binita Magaiya