As we move pass Temple of Taleju Bhawani with the myths, legends, history and monuments along the way, we’ll be resuming this account of heritage walk we had on Kathmandu Durbar Square area. Today, we’ll be covering about the different myths, legends, history and monuments in core Kathmandu Durbar Square area . Once again let’s thank our facilitator Mr. Sambid Bilas Pant for sharing his knowledge about the place through the Rotaract Event : Walk through the History. You can know more about ancient history, culture, myths and legends associated about Nepal through his social media here. Now let’s start from where we left it last time.
The Mysterious Inscription :
As we move towards the Hanumandhoka Durbar square from Taleju Bhawani temple, We’ll come across a long inscription outside the western facade of Hanumandhoka durbar near to its entrance. Though it looks like an ordinary inscription at the first glance, as one looks closer to this 15 feet long inscription, it bamboozles us with the mixture of information using different languages. This inscription installed by king Pratap Malla (a multi talented king) is believed to have featured a poem dedicated to goddess Taleju bhawani, the royal deity of Nepal, written in multiple languages. Officially 15 different languages like Devnagari, Ranjana, Tibetian, English, French, etc. have been found in the inscription by the historians. As per a legend, a stone tap at the center of the inscription will be serving milk instead of water once all the languages and the meaning of the inscription is decoded.
How Hanuman-Dhoka got its name ?
The main palace area at Kathmandu Durbar Square is called Hanuman-Dhoka Durbar. The story behind the names is always fascinating and so is the case of Hanuman-Dhoka Durbar. According to the Hindu mythology, Hanuman is a devotee of Lord Ram and one of his commanders. Hanuman is particularly famous for his strength and power and is regarded to be a savior against evil forces of nature.
The statue of Hanuman is installed at the gate of the main palace to keep it away from evil spirits and power. The word “Hanuman-Dhoka” means the gate with Hanuman. Thus, it is called Hanuman-Dhoka palace as the statue of Hanuman is placed on its entrance gate.
The Narashingha statue inside the palace
Narasingha, in Hindu mythology means an avatar of lord Bishnu having the head of a lion and body of a human. According to myths, lord Bishnu took the Avatar of Narasingha to kill an evil king called Hiranyakashyapu who was blessed with a boon to not be killed by gods, humans or devils in land or in the sky.
To deal with this issue, lord Bishnu tactfully became Narasingha: half human and half lion and killed it in his laps without him touching the ground fulfilling all the condition to be able to kill Hiranyakashyapu. But how did a statue of Narasingha get installed inside the palace courtyard? There is an interesting story behind it. King Pratap Malla was a prolific dancer and a stage performer. Once he performed as Narasingha in an event which everyone praised him for. But on the same night, king saw Narasingha in his dreams very angry on imitating him and threatened to kill the king.
King malla being highly religious, then installed the statue of Narashingha in his courtyard and started praying him for forgiveness.
A very unique structure :
As we enter the main courtyard of Hanuman-Dhoka palace, we can observe an extremely unique structure protruding from the roof at one of the corner. The structure is circular in shape and is five storied protruding over the three storied regular palace structure. The fact that it withstood the 7.8 Richter earthquake shows how advanced the medieval construction technology was in Nepal. The structure actually is a temple of Panchamukhi Hanuman : five different forms of Hanuman where each floor represents a form of Hanuman among the five. It is believed to be extremely sacred and only one selected priest is allowed inside the temple. The five forms are : Hanuman (Monkey), Narasingha (Lion), Garud (Eagle), Baraha (Boar) and Hayagriva (Horse) and hold different significance according to their significance.
The second courtyard and the towers :
As we move from main courtyard to the second one, we can see beautiful towers at the corner of the courtyard. All four towers are built with different designs and are prime example of excellent medieval architecture in Kathmandu Valley.
The four tower represents the four different kingdoms which used to exist in the Kathmandu valley at that time. The four Kingdoms were the kingdom of Kathmandu, Kingdom of Bhaktapur, the kingdom of Patan and the kingdom of Kirtipur. The Kirtipur used to be one of the strong kingdom in Kathmandu valley and is rich with its own culture and tradition which is less known compared to Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Patan.
A shiva temple used to exit at the second courtyard which was destroyed by the 2015 Earthquake. The remain of the temple can be seen exhibited near to the courtyard.
Kaalbhairav : The faith based Judicial system
Just in front of Hanuman Dhoka, there’s a high chance that you have seen a fascinatingly scary and large idol adjacent to the roads. The idol is of Kalbhairav which translates to the black form of lord Shiva. Kalbhairav is considered as the god of justice and according to the myths and legends, the ancient judicial proceedings used to take place infront of the statue of Kalbhairav. Anyone lying in front of Kalbhairav was believed to die vomiting the blood and thus this fear was used for the justice system in the city. It was not too long ago when the government officials used to be made to take oath infront of Kalbhairav. Personally, I find this ritual to be very cool and think it should be continued for its originality and uniqueness.
While there are many more interesting places and myths in durbar square area, I mentioned the ones which are less known publicly hoping it raised some curiosity to know more about the culture from Kathmandu Durbar square area. You can visit the place and know more places and get more stories in future. The heritage walk from Ason to Kathmandu Durbar square was really informative and fun. As it comes to an end, I would like to thank my home club Rotaract Club of Kathmandu for presenting with such an opportunity to be part of something so insightful. I hope you all enjoyed this walk through the history series.