Dubby Bhagat

Kathmandu:

The temple is the most majestic in all of Kathmandu. Its legends are the most romantic. When it was built in 1576, at the command of a king, it was required to be seen from the old city of Bhaktapur, some 10 miles away, from where the resident goddess was brought.

No other building was permitted to rise higher than its gilded roofs and golden finial. To attain its imposing height, it was raised on several receding brick plinths. The plinths alone would rival an Aztec temple and the mind boggles to think of how they were made, of how many people laboured to construct them, of the enormity of faith or discipline that inspired the builders.

Taleju Bhawani is a goddess from South India who well may feel far from home were it not for the great devotion lavished on her here. She was brought to Nepal in the early 14th century by Harishingha Deva, a Karnataka king who ruled over the small kingdom of Simroanghar in the foothills of present-day Nepal. When Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlak, who had marched on Bengal to suppress a rebellion, was returning triumphantly home to Delhi, he laid siege to Simroanghar. The royal family, the court and presumably the defeated army, fled northwards into Nepal. Here historical opinion is divided.

Either the Malla king, then resident in Bhaktapur, fled before this unintended invasion and abandoned his kingdom to Harisingha Deva, who established a Karnataka dynasty in the Kathmandu valley; or Harisingha Deva was hospitably received as a royal refugee by the Malla king and given the freedom of the valley for as long as he cared to stay. His influence on the political and cultural scene was nevertheless great.

It is believed by many to this day that the highly talented people of the Kathmandu valley, the Newars, derived their name from the Nayas who accompanied the Karnataka king, and remained to intermarry with the local people. One of the greatest Malla kings was of mixed Malla and Karnataka descent.

As soon as Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlak tired of besieging Simroanghar and marched away, King Harisingha Deva returned home. He left behind him his son, who was to rule the valley, several members of his court, and the precious gift of Taleju Bhawani.

The goddess came to be greatly venerated by the kings of Nepal. The magnificent Taleju temple was built to enshrine her and here only royalty may worship except during Dashain when the public is permitted to enter, to pray and make sacrifices.

A colourful story has King Jaya Prakash Malla playing dice with the goddess Taleju, who appeared to him as a beautiful mortal after his devotions. While they played, she advised him on affairs of state, a happy and helpful situation that would have continued had not the king one night looked lustfully upon the goddess. In great wrath she announced she would never come to him again. Worse, she predicted that both the end of his reign and the fall of his dynasty were at hand. When the king begged humbly for forgiveness, the goddess made a strange concession. The king was to select a virgin child from a Newari caste, proclaim her the Living Goddess Kumari, and worship her, for in this child she herself would manifest.

Whatever the legend, the consequence is the same. A desolate and repentant king at once ordered a search for a suitable child. When she was discovered with the help of his advisers and priests, King Jaya Prakash Malla had a fine dwelling built for her close to his place and within sight of the temple to Tajeju.

There she was installed with great ceremony and jubilation and the king instituted a yearly ‘jatra’ (procession) in her honour. Perhaps, in the midst of all this joyful activity he forgot something very important. The goddess Taleju Bhawani’s prophecy; the loss of his kingdom and the fall of his dynasty.