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

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Patan, the 16th century Manicaitya
at the northern end of the Darbar
Square: beautification in 2015 by
a flimsy enclosure of flimsy rods,
with prayer wheels in the corners, a
canopy and a frill of fabric.
Photograph N. Gutschow, 2015.
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Kathmandu, Tripureshvara temple,
built in 1818, collapsed in the 1934
earthquake and rebuilt in the following
years with a cornice molded
in concrete and dispensing with the
latticed screens between the struts.
Photograph N. Gutschow, 2007
The most complex story, however, is told by the development
of the Yakseshvara temple in Bhaktapur. Only
the southern portal dates to the early 15th century, a
date based on radiocarbon testing. A stylistic analysis
of the three remaining portals suggests a 16th, 17th
and even 19th century origin. For whatever reasons—
lack of resources, fading interest in a changed political
landscape, pressure of time—the eastern portal is barely
carved. Even the wall brackets were left uncarved. The
design ofthe portal was not changed or “modernized”,
but the surface remained blank. This had happened already
a few centuries earlier, when the northern, eastern
and southern portals of the Indreshvara temple in
Panauti were installed in a rudimentary fashion, with the
lintel ends, the quarter round panels, the wall brackets
and the blocks above the threshold ends left uncarved.
It is also worth mentioning that almost all of the two
hundred Buddhist votive structures of the Licchavi period
(5th–9th centuries), known as Caityas or Stupas,
were reconfigured and even relocated in the first half of
the 17th century. Very few of these are preserved in their
original configuration. Pedestal, lower storeys, drum,
dome and pinnacle have often been reassembled or incorporated
into a 17th or 18th century Caitya to gain a
“new life”.
The most intrusive change occurred when, after the
earthquakes of 1808, 1833 and 1934, tiered temples
were replaced by domed ones to comply with Anglo-Indian
architectural norms, which were mainly imported
from Lucknow, the flourishing center of North India at
the end of the 18th and early 19th century. The following
suggestions are not well established, but most probably
the Jagannatha temple at Kathmandu’s Tundikhel
field was replaced by the first domed structure in the
valley in 1809, and after 1833 the tiered temple of Matsyendranath
in Bungamati was replaced by a Shikhara
temple. After the 1934 earthquake, quite a number of
tiered temples or temples with a Shikhara tower were
renewed with a dome on top; to name only a couple,
the Vishveshvara temple (Bhaidegah) on Patan’s Darbār
Square or the Silumahadyah on Bhaktapur Darbar
Square which subsequently was named “Pumpkin
Temple” (Phasidegah). Many of the Shikhara temples,
heavily damaged in the 1934 earthquake (Vatsala and
Siddhilakshmi temples in Bhaktapur, Krishna temple in
Patan), were hastily rebuilt, causing their collapse or critical
condition in 2015.
The impulse to beautify and simplify
Since the earliest time, the impulse to beautify has had a
number of consequences. From the thirteenth century,
the chronicles refer to the replacement of tiled roofs with
gilt copper roofing. The same is true for the covering up
of tympana and entire door frames with gilt repoussé
work in copper or even silver. The Pashupatinath temple
serves as a good example: Amar Singh had the northern
portal covered by gilt copper in 1814, and Kulananda
Jha covered the western portal in 1818. Prime Minister
Ranaodip Singh donated the marble flooring in 1880,
Chanda Shumsher Rana repaired the gilt roofs in 1925,
and King Mahendra had the gilt roofs renewed on the
occasion of his coronation in 1956. King Birendra followed
suit in 1975, donating the ceiling in silver.
With sheet copper imported from Japan easily available
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