KVPT’s Patan Darbar Earthquake Response Campaign - Work to Date - September 2016

Opposite
Char Narayana Temple
Detail of a pencil drawing, made by Rajman
Singh for Brian Houghton Hodgson,
the former British Resident, ca. 1844.
Hodgson had inscribed the drawing at the
bottom in pencil, later in ink, indentifying
the temple erroneously as “ Tou Deo or
Maha Déva”. By the tripartite portal the
temple is easily identifiable as the Char
Narayana temple, of which the roofs obviously
collapsed in the 1833 earthquake.
The ruin was exposed to the rains for a
period of more than eleven years, causing
the collapse of the corners and some of
the windows. This long period of neglect
and poor maintenance was probably
instrumental in the total collapse of the
temple in 2015.
Courtesy: Royal Asiatic Society, 022.013.
Char Narayana
After the temple collapsed on 25 April 2015, almost all
architectural fragments could be salvaged and stored
with the help of the army and police at the neighboring
Keshav Narayan Chowk of the palace.
In May the preserved constituent parts of the four portals
were sorted out. In June the four portals were provisionally
assembled and stored in low shelter structures,
well protected against weather. The four ground floor
tympana and the first and second floor windows were
stored in storage shacks, and the struts were kept at the
Keshav Narayan Chowk.
In early May the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University
(Germany) initiated a fundraising campaign for
the rebuilding of the temple which was overwhelmingly
successful. In June the first installment was transferred
and later in the year a second installment. In July the
John Eskenazi Foundation (London) joined and a few
weeks later the Bonham Auction House, New York.
On June 2, 2015, a conciliatory puja was performed after
the full clearance of the site to allow the devotees to
worship in situ the Char Narayan stele, which remained
unharmed and unmoved in the center of the temple’s
sanctum. A canopy was added later.
On 10 September 2016 another conciliatory ritual
(kṣemapūjā) was performed to allow further interventions
in the wake of the rebuilding of the temple.
Foundations
Soil tests were made in July 2015 and excavation of the
brick foundations on the northern and western sides of
the temple started on August 10. The Department of
Archaeology had this work stopped after ten days with
the argument that the touching of soil should be supervised
by an archaeologist.
Only on 5 September 2016 was the digging up of the
foundations resumed in order to meet virgin soil. The
aim is to strengthen the foundation by filling the gap
between the brick foundation walls below the wall of the
sanctum and the outer wall of the temple with regular
bricks.
The introduction of a grid of reinforced concrete - as
proposed by Matthias Beckh in August 2015 - remained
an issue of discussion in September.
Ground floor
The seed money received by the South Asia Institute
enabled the Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust to
engage two carpenters in May to assemble the windows
and portals. In July these carpenters started to replace
the inner frames of the four doorways of the sanctum.
This work was completed in January 2016. The eight
door leaves of pine wood were not found in the debris
and will be replaced by the end of 2016.
Of the four portals, first the southern one was moved
to the workshop in January, repair / restoration (see
elevation drawing) of missing and damaged parts was
completed in May. Work on the eastern portal started
in June, work (see elevation drawing) will be completed
by the end of September. The western portal was
moved to the workshop on 27 August to be completely
repaired by December. The northern portal, which requires
comparatively small interventions, will be shifted
to the workshop in November. Work on all portals will
be complete by the end of 2016. Then each will be installed
in an upright position, supported by a provisional
threshold of wood, before being joined to the threshold
in stone in its original position.
The 24 door leaves in pine of the portals were not recovered
from the debris. They will be produced in November
and be in place when the portals are stored in an
upright position.
Seven of the eight aedicules flanking the portals and
bearing the guardians of the universe will need only little
repair. One aedicule (west-south) was lost to theft in
2010 and will have to be replicated.
The inner frames of the four portals are not fully preserved.
Simple carpentry will replace the missing parts.
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