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

of the old bricks, new bricks will be produced in November
2016.
Evidence of the details of all the portals, doorways
(jambs, lintels, colonnettes, outer frames), columns,
colonnettes of the two arcaded halls (mandapa), the arcaded
ambulatory of the Harishankara temple and the
two-tiered Char Narayana temple have been preserved.
There will be no room for conjecture when replicating
the general scheme of decorative details, such as bands
of flowers, leaves or even lotus foliage (Fig. 31, 32). One
should, however, never forget that Newar carpenters do
not know geometrical patterns (as mentioned by the
Conservation Manual by John Marshal, 1923) which
can be extended ad infinitum. Rather, the individual
carpenter enjoyed relative freedom in carving lotus foliage
that occasionally turns into creepers and vine. The
result is that no coiled lotus foliage equals the neighboring
one and no column detail, such as the pot motif, the
myrobalan or walnut pattern on one column is identical
with the pattern of the neighboring column. There is
ample freedom to realize the same program and meet the
same proportions. Newar wood carving always followed
a grammar which was interpreted by the carpenter in his
own way. The scope for variation was, however, narrow,
to such an extent that the carving of an entire doorway
or, for example, the carving of the twelve columns of the
northern Manimandapa conveys a wholeness which is
absolutely coherent. No column equals any of the other
ones, but all twelve columns make up a family, quite
distinct from the contemporary columns and quite different
from the twelve columns of the northern Manimandapa.
The same is true for the columns and colonnettes
of the Harishankara temple and the portals of
the Char Narayana temple. The older a temple is, the
more likely a deviance in style, for example of the pot
motif. The northern portals, for example, differ from the
southern portal of the Char Narayana temple in presenting
the Kirtimukha motif on the jambs.
33, 34
Patan, Harishankara temple.
Recreation by Indra Kaji Shilpakar
of two Mother goddesses of the
quarter round panels flanking the
ground floor doorways, in analogy
to the surviving ones, August 2016.
Photographs B. Basukala, 2016
The tympana and windows of the Harishankara temple
49