Gokarneshwor Mahadev Temple

About

Set on the banks of the Bagmati a few kilometres northeast of Bodhnath in the Kathmandu Valley, the Temple is one of Nepal's important pilgrimage places for devotees of Shiva. The deity is honoured here as Gokarneshwor, the Lord of Gokarna, with a lingam enshrined in the inner sanctum.

While the lingam is the focus of daily worship, the Temple is also celebrated for the remarkable assembly of stone images and carvings that crowd its walls and surrounding courtyard. These figures depict deities, sages, and scenes from Hindu cosmology, and reward the careful eye of pilgrim and student alike.

Gokarneshwor is especially associated with the Nepali rite of Kuse Aunsi, when devotees who have lost their fathers come to perform memorial offerings for them along the river, making the Temple a vital site of pitri tarpan, the ancestral observances of Hindu tradition.

History

The site's sculpture and stonework are dated by tradition to the Licchavi period of the fifth to eighth centuries, and the present Temple structure was raised in 1582. Around 1855, some thirty stone images were added to the Temple grounds under Balbhadra Bhanjan Pande, among them a Chaturmukhi Brahma and a Chitragupta that pilgrims and scholars still study today.

Significance

On Kuse Aunsi, the new moon of Bhadra, Nepali Hindus who have lost their fathers come to Gokarneshwor to perform pitri tarpan, offerings of remembrance made along the Bagmati, while those whose fathers live make the journey to seek their blessing; the observance is also called Gokarna Aunsi after the Temple itself. Its lingam is honoured in daily worship, but the Temple's wider fame rests on the extraordinary gathering of stone sculpture that fills its courtyard and walls.

Architecture

Newari three-tiered pagoda architecture