Razen Manandhar

Kathmandu, February 23:

The month-long festival of Rato Machhindranath, locally known as Bunga-dyo, is on its way to becoming Nepal’s first intangible heritage “masterpiece”, and will be listed in the United Nation’s Eduational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) schedule.

The lengthy process of sending a formal proposal to UNESCO was completed recently. The National Commission for UNESCO (NCU), which undertook the responsibility, is waiting for a reply.

“We sent a proposal to have the festival of Rato Machhindranath included in the international ‘masterpice of intangible heritage’ from our side,” said Bhim Nepal, general secretary of the NCU’s cultural committee. He added it was not a “World Heritage Site”, as many people undertand it. NCU had hired two consultants — Satya Mohan Joshi and Mukunda Raj Aryal — to enter the details of the festival.

The deity of Rato Machhindranath resides in the temple at Bungamati and is brought to a pagoda at Tabahal in Patan. After the chariot round, the deity is taken back to Bungamati for around six months. The festival is also known as that of the god of rain, as it heralds the rainy season. Legend has it that the deity was brought from Assam in the 7th century when Kathmandu Valley was hit by a 12-year-long drought. With the arrival of the deity, rains returned to the Valley.

Satya Mohan Joshi, one of the consultants hired by the NCU, said that they had compiled all documented details on every aspect of the festival and hoped that UNESCO would honour it with the title.

“I’m sure this festival will be documented in UNESCO as a masterpiece as it represents the heartbeat of all residents of Kathmandu Valley for the last 1300 years,” he said.

Incidentally, a group related to Guthi Sansthan had proposed to the government that the chariot be made of reusable steel components because the traditional method of constructing the chariot was costly.

But experts opined that change in indigenous technology of making the chariot would become a hurdle in the process of winning the title of masterpiece of world intangible heritage. “The honour is going to be given not only to the structure and people’s faith but also to the technology that the people of the Valley have been conserving for thousands of year. It should not be changed,” Nepal added.