IDSP16 Field Update: Kathmandu

by Meredith Rupp; IPD student and IDSP16 Fellow

Since arriving in Kathmandu, my senses have been under siege. And I am reveling in it. I have seen otherwise wild motorcycles slowed to a sputter for the meanderings of a cow; a baby, eyes winged in eyeliner and arms bundled in red cloth, posing for pictures at temple after temple in celebration of its first bites of rice; and dried buffalo intestines draped over a temple doorway in offering to gods. The perfume of incense and the sounds of phlegm being passed are unceasing. Seldom is the doorway that goes unadorned in marigolds and painted Buddha eyes peer over you from all around. I have determined Nepali tea to be a thick, steaming dream whose spice is just strong enough to do a little tap dance on your tongue. And alas, I have dodged incoming traffic right into the trajectory of bird poop. Of all my experiences so far, none has been more puzzling, memorable, powerful or uncomfortable as the Antyesti at Pashupatinath Temple.

Temple Grounds

Pashupatinath Temple is a famous and sacred site of the Hindu religion built on the banks of the holy Bagmati river. Built in the 15th century for the national deity Lord Pashupati (an incarnation of Shiva), the site is a string of temples, ashrams, stone inscriptions, and never ending stairs. Every evening there is a Hindu ceremony there – one where bodies are burned, smoke blankets the holy ground beneath your slinking feet, and voices rise up, not in pain or grief filled questions, but in a powerful and unified exultation of life and death and god.

From the moment you set foot in this place, you feel out of place. There are monkeys – big and baby – menacing you with piercing red eyes. A dirty, holy river, grey from ash and trash and the what’s left of charred souls, snakes throughout the center of the grounds. Stairs line both sides of the river, with pyres aflame on one side and three high priests performing a ceremony on the other. The priests sing to the gathered crowd as mourning husbands have their heads shaved and smoking bodies cloud the air with souls escaping their bodies. As the burning ends, the remains of the corpses are placed on stretchers and draped in colored cloths, red for married women leaving their husbands behind and white for widows and men. Small groups of the principal mourners carry the stretchers upstream as the priests chant, dance, and

Nepali tea

swirl flames and plants in the air. Mourners wash themselves in the smoky river and place the stretchers on ramps down to the river. They adorn their departed with tikah, flowers, statues, and whispered prayers while the priests and their followers clap and cry out to the gods together. All the while, tourists flash photos of the dead and outsiders watch in wonder.

This storyteller did indeed take a few photos before realizing that I had perhaps violated some nascent and as yet still forming value I hold. I have never had so many questions or felt so conflicted about something happening right before me. It seemed so otherworldly and wrong to be watching something so private and quiet in the US. In Nepal though, religion and life are in constant overlap. Some Nepali sent their dead to whatever comes next and the rest were there to celebrate and honor this tradition; whether they knew the deceased or not was irrelevant for they know the cycle of life and death and the power of the gods over it all.

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