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

wall brackets feature seven male figures and one female.
Ganesha is identifiable left of the southern doorway, Kumara
left of the western doorway, and Nandikeshvara,
Shiva's mount. As Gail has pointed out, the iconography
of this and many other temples is based on sources that
are known neither to us not to local priests or scholars.
The blocks above the threshold ends represent Eight
pseudo-Bhairavas, the fierce representations of Shiva,
equipped with ten arms to act as guardians, Dvarapalas.
Niches in the ground floor walls feature the four-armed
Eight Guardians of the universe (Ashtadikpala): Indra,
Agni, Yama, Nairriti, Varuna, Vayu, Kubera and Ishana,
on their respective mounts.
The 24 struts of the lower roof feature six- and eightarmed
representations of Vishnu, Ganesha and Hanuman.
Inscriptions at the bottom of these struts explain
scenes that propagate papdharma, meaning it explains
what happens to evil doers in hell. For example, those
who commit adultery will be fried in oil and those who
visit prostitutes will end up in the Krakasana hell. The
sixteen struts of the second roof and the eight of the
third roof feature representations of Shiva.
Summary: The Harishankara temple does not mark the
end of the building activities of Patan's Darbar Square
but highlights the impulse to compete with the neighbouring
kingdoms by installing a miniature version of a
triple-tiered temple on a triple stepped plinth (294 cms
to the base of the pillars). The carving is not comparable
with the high standard of its prototype from 1627, and
the iconographical programme replicates the prototype.
Sources:
Albert Gail, Tempel in Nepal, Vol. I, Graz 1984, pp. 44-
61, 74-77 and pl.XXXIX-XLIII
Carl Pruscha, Kathmandu Valley. The Preservation of
Physical Environment and Cultural Heritage. A Protective
Inventory, Vienna, 1975. Vol. II, p. 163.
Mary Slusser, Nepal Mandala, Princeton University
Press, 1982, p. 203.
State of repair
The temple collapsed in total on 25 April 2015. The
thresholds of the sanctum are still in place, albeit damaged.
Hundreds of wooden fragments were salvaged,
and first stored in the Keshav Narayan Chowk. In June
2015, a storage shack was constructed to store all the
fragments which belong to the Harishankara temple.
The pillars survived in full length; the tenons, however,
are broken. The doorways are also intact. Seven of the
20 colonnettes and the tympana which they had been
supporting are broken. Most of the 44 struts and 12
corner struts survived in full length. The same is true
for the 20 symbolic windows of the first, second and
third levels. Only minor damage occurred. The entire
inner frames of the doorways and the secondary lintels
of doors and windows cannot be retrieved from the large
heap of fragments because they are not carved.
Available documents
The earliest document showing the Harishankara temple
is a watercolour drawing by Henry Ambrose Oldfield,
made ca. 1855. Oldfield was the physician at the British
Residency who produced an early view of the square,
which is valid till today. The earliest photographic evidence
dates to February 1885, when the French traveller
and psychologist Gustave Le Bon photographed the
ground floor arcade, covering three intercolumniations.
Transformed into a wood engraving, the image was published
in the French magazine La Tour du Monde in Paris
in 1886 and in the same year in the German magazine
Globus. In December 1898, the German traveller Kurt
Böck visited Patan. The photograph showing the Harishankara
in the centre was published a couple of times in
Germany after 1903. Also worth mentioning is a photograph
by the firm Herzog & Higgins in 1902, which
shows the stepped plinth and the pillared ambulatory.
Opposite
Harishankara Temple
View from the northeast, the day
after the earthquake.
Photograph Rohit Ranjitkar,
April 26, 2015
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