Nyatapola Temple

About

Nyatapola, whose name in Nepal Bhasa means a structure of five storeys, rises at the heart of Bhaktapur in the Kathmandu Valley as the tallest Temple in Nepal and one of only two five-tiered shrines in the valley alongside Kumbheshvara of Lalitpur. King Bhupatindra Malla commissioned the Temple, completed in a remarkable six months between December 1701 and July 1702.

The Temple rises on a five-level brick plinth, each tier guarded by a paired stone watch: at the bottom the wrestlers Jaya and Pratap, above them two elephants, then two singhas, then two sardulas, and at the top the Tantric lionesses Simhani and Vyaghrani, each pair held to be ten times stronger than the one below. Five Ganesha shrines stand at the corners, and 529 wind bells hang along the tiered roofs.

Its presiding deity is Maa Siddhi Lakshmi, Tantric mother goddess of the Newars of Bhaktapur and ancestral deity of the Malla royal house. The image is said to be at least three metres tall, standing on the shoulders of Bhairava with nine heads and eighteen arms. Because the goddess holds the highest position in the Tantric pantheon, her image is kept hidden and only Karmacharya priests may enter, the gates opening just once each year.

For centuries the silhouette of Nyatapola has shaped the skyline of Bhaktapur. It has stood through the great earthquakes of 1934 and April 2015, and its image is borne on the coats of arms of the municipality.

History

King Bhupatindra Malla laid the foundation himself on 4 January 1702, carrying three bricks to the site on his own shoulder, and construction was complete within six months, drawing timber, stone and labour donated from every district of Bhaktapur and beyond. A palm leaf ledger written in Nepal Bhasa, the siddhagni kotyahuti devala pratishtha, records the name and wage of every worker on the project, down to the woodcutters who felled its sal timber. The Temple has withstood the region's great earthquakes since, including 1934 and April 2015, its stepped brick plinth acting as a natural base isolator.

Significance

Nyatapola takes its name not from its deity but from its own five storeys, an honour almost no other Temple in the valley shares. Each of its five plinths is guarded by a pair of stone figures, wrestlers, elephants, lions, and griffin-like sardulas, and at the summit Maa Siddhi Lakshmi's own tantric lionesses, each pair believed ten times stronger than the one beneath it. So sacred is the goddess enshrined within that Her image is seen only by Karmacharya priests, and the Temple's doors open to anyone else only once each year.

Architecture

Newar pagoda architecture; a five-tiered brick and timber tower on a stepped five-level plinth, the tallest Temple structure in Nepal