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 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

The principal record of the temple's construction is a palm-leaf manuscript called the siddhagni kotyahuti devala pratishtha, written in Nepal Bhasa, which lists every worker, wage, ritual, and donation involved in the project. King Bhupatindra Malla laid the foundation in person on 4 January 1702 by carrying three bricks on his shoulder. The temple was raised from over 1.1 million bricks, with timber gathered from forests around Bhaktapur and stones donated by the twenty-four historic districts of the city. A great siddhagni kotyahuti yagya, an offering of ten million oblations to the sacred fire, accompanied the consecration of the deity.

Significance

Nyatapola is one of the only major temples named for the dimensions of its architecture rather than for the deity it enshrines. Built to subdue the destructive aspect of Bhairava through the power of Siddhi Lakshmi, it stands as the protective heart of Bhaktapur and as a peak achievement of Newar sacred architecture in the Malla age.