Susan Griffith-Jones

Kathmandu:

Standing in the queue to offer our plates of puja items at the shrine of Saraswati, I had the opportunity to look around me and to examine the scene. Men and women along with many young boys and girls had been organised into two lines; the men’s one was shorter, but moved faster; the women’s longer, but moved slower. I wondered what this said about the nature of the event taking place here on Manjushri Hill at Swayambhunath.

Children were running around in all directions, carrying little butter lamps and sticks of incense. After all, this puja is especially revered by children of schoolgoing age. Above us, the freshly hung prayer flags newly changed during the festivities of Losar last week were blowing noisily in a wind that offered a warmth we have been unused to during these last few months. “Today is the first day of Spring,” I remembered, as I saw an absolutely clear azure sky cradling a sun that blasted down its midday heat. We moved forward to the head of the line and bent down to place our foreheads at the feet of the shrine to ask Saraswati to shine her virtue onto us.

At Swayambhu, Saraswati, a river goddess, and the Hindu deity of wisdom and learning, is the consort of Manjushri, the Buddhist saint and deity of wisdom. Her tantric form is called Bageshwari while Manjushri here is referred to as Bageshwar. The story goes that he came from Wu Tai Mountain, located in the province of Shan Xhi in Eastern China. Approaching from the north side of the valley, he saw a dazzling blue light radiating from the centre of the lake. He realised that he had discovered a manifestation of the Adi Buddha, the self-existing Buddha. Feeling sorry that nobody would be able to reach this blessed place and benefit from its sacredness due to the vast obstacle of water dominating the valley, he went to its shores and asked to speak to the Naga king, who was the ruler of the serpent creatures that lived in its depths. He struck a deal with the king, telling him that he wanted to drain the lake so that many souls could profit from access to the Adi Buddha. The valley drained of its water would also provide fertile land for farming. The Naga king was afraid for the home of his subjects, but Manjushri found a solution to his dilemma by offering to leave two lakes for the Nagas to populate, one of which can be found today in central Kathmandu at Naga Pokhari and the other nearby the road that leads to Parphing. Manjushri then cut a gorge with his flaming sword of wisdom that he perennially holds in his right hand, in the southern part of the valley and the waters flowed away revealing a multidimensional lotus of blue light shining at a certain location within the valley. The Arhats built up a hill upon which the lotus would sit, but the stupa itself was later erected by Shankaracharya from India. It is said that the lotus of blue light still shines beneath the stupa.

The Buddhist pujari at the Saraswati shrine, Prakash Buddhacharya told us that the worship of Saraswati is a 2,500-year-old tradition here and that it was right there, at the position of the shrine where we were offering the items of worship, that Manjushri had first set foot in the place. I am a little unsure whether to take this story with a pinch of salt or whether to give it the credibility that it probably deserves. I was also told that one can still see the blue light shining from the top of the stupa, especially on full moon days and I resolved to come back and investigate. I love the stories that circulate these wonderful places, which undoubtably have an aura about them of intense sacredness. These are places that you come to, you stay a while and then you leave changed in some unspoken way, just as if a natural reconfiguration of one’s entire energy structure has invisibly taken place. I wonder what has pulled me to the hills of Swayambhunath this day. True, I came to experience the ambience, the puja festivities and to have a nice outing to a place that has always been special to me, but I believe that the call is deeper and perhaps this is true for each one of us, who consciously or otherwise strive endlessly to reach our nature of true

wisdom hidden within. “Saraswati,” I whisper, “Let wisdom shine forth upon this beautiful nation.”