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

Patan Darbar Earthquake
Response Campaign
By Erich Theophile and Liz Newman
The Kathmandu Valley heritage that we know and celebrate
is [that] of the Newar community, who were the original
inhabitants of Kathmandu. [In Newar architecture],
there is the Narayan, there is the Shiva, there are Krishnas,
of course. All the pantheon of the Kathmandu Valley’s deities
are there. When we do consider them to be Hindu deities,
we must keep in mind that there is not a sharp, hard
line between [Hinduism and Buddhism]…. These same
deities can be also worshipped by people of the other faith.
Nobody is saying, oh, that’s a Hindu temple, or oh, that’s
a Buddhist shrine. The same Hindu will circumambulate
the so-called Buddhist shrine, and the Buddhist will also
circumambulate the so-called Hindu shrine. To me, that is
the value of humanity that I inherit.
I’m an agnostic, so often people ask me, why are you going
about rebuilding temples when you don’t even believe in the
deities in the first place? What I trust and what I believe in
is the belief and faith of the people that I live amongst. So if
they believe, to me, that is what is important….
Within that context, the first thing that you need to do is
to make sure that the physical attributes of your history remain,
in this roller coaster that we have been in, in which
is included conflict and economic globalization, and loss of
so much living and non-living—tangible and intangible—
heritage. But within that context, I would say that we must
keep in mind we are not only talking about rebuilding of
the brick, mortar, and wood; we are talking about living
heritage.
This is what makes Kathmandu Valley different from most
other heritage sites of this kind, because here, when you have
a temple, it is a temple that is venerated even today, because
there are people who come to pray to that deity in there….
And if my current compatriots in Kathmandu Valley appreciate
and believe, then I respect that, and I feel that their
subject of obeisance, and the place of their obeisance,—the
temples,—must be preserved, because that adds value and
texture to our lives.
Kanak Mani Dixit, August 2016
Journalist, writer and preservation
advocate in Kathmandu,
Honorary Chairman of the
Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust
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