Saturday 25th, we visit Pashupatinath ( pronounced posh-potty-not), which is Nepal’s holiest Hindu pilgrimage site. There are temples, cremation ghats, ritual bathers and half-naked sadhus. I take just one picture from far away, for the sake of illustrating this report, but I am scandalised by the lack of respect displayed by tourists who do not consider for a minute the grieving families’ feelings at the cremation pyres.
The temples straddle the Bagmati River, which despite its filth is held by conservative Hindus to be the holiest in the Valley, and this specific stretch the most sacred of all. To die and be cremated here is to be released from the cycle of rebirths. Wives used to commit sati on their husbands’ funeral pyres, and although the practice was outlawed in the early twentieth century, it’s still widely believed that husbands and wives who bathe here together will be remarried in the next life. Bathing is considered especially meritorious on full-moon days.
Next we visit Boudha, about 5 km northeast of downtown Kathmandu. To ancient travellers along the Kathmandu-Tibet route, the biggest, most auspicious landmark was, and still is, the great stupa at Boudha. It is generally acknowledged to be the most important Tibetan Buddhist monument outside Tibet. Tibetans called it simply Chorten Chempo (great stupa) and since 1995 it has become the Mecca of Tibetan exiles in Nepal. Legends seem to fix its origins around the fifth century AD.
The dome is elevated on three twenty-cornered plinths of decreasing size, which
reinforce the notion of the stupa as a mandala or meditation tool.
Instead of five dhyani Buddhas, however, 108 much smaller images of Buddhas, lamas and protector deities are set in niches around the dome.
Prayer wheels are mounted around the perimeter wall, they bear the mantra OM MANI PADME HUM (hail to the jewel in the lotus) which are Tibetans innovations that aid meditative concentration.