The Lower House of the Parliament has been virtually up in verbal flames following the allegation of adulteration in the gilding of the Jalahari of the Pashupatinath Temple implicating the former prime minister, K P Sharma Oli.

According to the Maoist Central Committee lawmaker, Lekh Nath Dahal, the tenure of Oli was tinged with several shortcomings, such as the ballooning of the nation's debt to Rs 17 trillion from Rs 7 trillion and the use of brass in the making of the Jalahari.

This has added fuel to the fire that has been raging in the country after the exposure in the open of the fake Bhutanese refugee scam in which former deputy prime minister Top Bahadur Rayamajhi, former home minister Bal Krishna Khand and a seating Secretary, Tek Narayan Pandey, have been put behind bars with 30 others for their complicity.

The Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML) disrupted the House for this factious allegation, demanding apology from Dahal and its erasure from the records of the proceedings,which reassembled again after a meeting with the Prime Minister Prachanda.

The Prime Minister, during his address to the Parliament, said that it was inappropriate to link former prime minister Oli when the case is being under the scanner of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority. Consequently, the allegation of Dahal has been removed from the record of the parliamentary proceeding.

Mahadev is known as the God of Gods, numbering 33 types of Gods Goddesses as per Satapath Brahmana, and one of the trinity of the Hindu pantheon together with the other two, Brahma and Bishnu. Brahma is the creator and Bishnu the protector while Shiva is the destroyer, particularly of the evil that torments the good.

He is the paramount God of Nepal and a national icon.

Mahadev is represented by a vertical shaft, the phallus, standing over a base indicative of the female genital, which can be a square as well as circular. It is widely known as Jalahari that drains the oblation offered to Mahadev, generally five items in number, and hence called panchamrita, consisting of milk, honey,sugar, ghee and yogurt.

Jalaharis are as old as Shivalingas, which like those of South India, the Gudimallam Linga, date back to between 4th Century BC and 3rd Century AD.

In Nepal, the earliest dated linga is that of Lazimpat, erected by Nara Verma, a royal courtier, during the reign of Licchavi King Mana Dev in 465. Though the linga exists, the templehas disappeared, perhaps to the earthquakes that occur regularly in the valley.

The gilding of temples and images goes back to time immemorial. Consequently, Sri Lanka was known as a golden country.

So, when Laxman suggested Rama to remain in Lanka instead of returning to Ayodhya after the victory over Ravana, Ramahad said, 'Lanka does not appeal to me even if golden, mother like place of birth isakin to heaven'.

The tradition of gilding appears glaringly in Nepal in the Golden Gate of Bhaktapur that dates back to the regime of King Yaksha Malla who ruled for the most of the 15th century. So can it be seen in the Kwa Baha of Patan, more popularly known as the Golden Temple.

The north south trade culminating in Tibet fetched huge fortunes forNepali business persons, who used them in the temples, the centre of their religious faith.

Several rulers are said to have abused the riches of the temples and would not have hesitated to adulterate the gilding of the temples as well. One of them was the 11th century ruler, Bhaskara Dev, who not only sold his father's crown but also destroyed the image of goddesses.

King Rana Bahadur Shahalso damaged many temples after Queen Kantabati died of small pox even after paying homage and offering cash and kinds to these temples. Similarly, Bhimshen Thapa had confiscated the income of the trust to manage for the expenses incurred in the Nepal British War.

It was during Bidhya Bhandari's stint as the President that the decision was made to gild the Jalahari. It had faced opposition, and a petition was filed at the Supreme Court, as it was in violation of the provision of the Ancient Monument Preservation Act, which prevents any addition or omission in a monument that is more than a hundred years old. The apex court had issued an interim order not to gild the Jalahari.

Despite that, the Jalahari was given a 96-kilogramme cover overnight, and 12 kilos remained yet to be added.

The gilding of the Jalahari, however, is not contrary to the conservation principles.

Because it was gilded before the 18th century. But King Jaya Prakash Malla is said to have used it to fund the war against Prithvi Narayan Shah of Gorkha.

He is also said to have used the gold of the pinnacle of Pashupatinath and Bageswori temples.

One of the interventions of architecture conservation, known as Reintegration, seeks to bring the monument to its earlier form if it has been modified with the passage of time.

The Jalahari was gilded, and it was stripped off by Jaya Prakash Malla and is not wrong to bring it back to its original form.

Several examples can be cited in this regard. One of them is the Ranipokhari Temple,which was constructed in 1670 by Pratap Malla in Granthakut style, but it was reconstructed in a domed style after the earthquake of 1934. It has now been restored to the original Granthakut style.

The problem is thus not of gilding the Jalahari. But it is regarding the likely abuse of the gold used in the process.

It is unfortunate that the former prime minister has been alleged by a person no lesser than a sitting Member of Parliament. It has obviously raised the hornet's nest because of its association with the Pashupatinath Temple, which is the centre of belief of the Hindus around the globe.

A version of this article appears in the print on May 30, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.