Image of Maitidevi

भिडियो हेर्न तलको बक्स भित्र क्लिक गर्नुहोस

Maitidevi Temple

Rarely anyone dared venture near Maitidevi temple during the day and everyone, except tantriks (shamans), invariably stayed away from the place at night. Dense, thorny bushes separated it from the surrounding houses, and a nearby shamshan ghat (cremation ground)—an ideal—place for invoking the spirits—meant that there would be little human interference.

Until the beginning of 20th century, that is, when the Rana Prime Minister Chandra Shamsher erected the current structure in pagoda style like most other Hindu temples in the valley. A glance at the shops and houses nearby, much older in appearance, makes you wonder if the temple was built much later after the residents settled in the area. But Tirtha Man Bajracharya, the head priest at the temple says, “The oldest edifice was built in 628 AD by Amshu Verma, a warrior under Lichhavi King Shiva Dev”—fully 13 centuries before Chandra Shamsher.

The temple of Maitidevi can be reached going west from Old Baneshwor and turning right before approaching Dillibazaar. The other way is to turn right from Gyaneshwor Chowk crossing. Ask a shop-owner or locals and they’ll guide you. If you are driving your way up to the temple, look out for the traffic as one-way rule is applicable on most roads in the route.

Going by the priest’s claim and what you observe of the current structure, its delicate woodwork and metal craft, all you can conjure up of the old days is nothing more than a makeshift place of worship.

Nobody knows quite what it looked like at the beginning. The two stone lions guarding the entrance to the sanctum sanctorum, and the huge peepal tree with its expanding branches arching over the temple (a divine architecture, you could say, to shelter the temple from heat and rain) are some of the relics from the time when Amshu Verma built the first temple in 7th century. Similarly, tucked a few feet away on the right hand side of the temple is a crematorium, a small space enclosed within concrete walls, the remains of the ancient cremation ground (the shamshan ghat). 

Locals have urged the temple committee several times to relocate the crematorium or disallow burning of pyres; just across the wall you can see schools and houses that almost certainly reeks with smells when the funeral rites are carried out. The priest at the temple points out, however, that “The crematorium is an integral part of the temple because the actual rituals followed by the priests of Maitidevi temple are based on tantric practices.” The prayer in its original form requires us to burn the human skulls, he says, “but that looks too ogrish today, so we make human face on a large dollop of ghee and burn it instead.”

Traditions associated with the temple continue to change with each generation, but a few have been going on for ages. During Tihar, the Festival of Lights which falls during October-November, for example, prayer to Laxmi (Goddess of Wealth) is offered at homes only after Maitidevi is worshipped at the temple. The goddess, also revered as Mahalaxmi, has to be reinstituted inside the sanctum sanctorum every year during Laxmi Puja by the Munikars of Maligaon. The Munikars, a Newari caste living in Maligaon on the east edge of Kathmandu city, are the designated caretakers of the goddess. “They offer prayer to the goddess with special flowers called muswon,” says the priest. (Mu implies Munikar and swon means flower.) Until very recently, this flower was grown exclusively by the Munikars. 

Likewise, before and after going to Manokamana, the popular Temple of Wishes in Gorkha District, people offer jal (sacred water) to Maitidevi for their wishes to materialize. Maitidevi temple, it is said, is parental home of all goddesses. The name of the temple itself is derived from maiti (parental home) and devi (goddess). During Teej festival, therefore, married women pay obeisance to the goddess and gather at the temple to dance and sing. Something women who lived some 1400 years ago, when Amshu Verma first set up the temple, would not have imagined in the worst of their dreams.

भिडियो हेर्न तलको बक्स भित्र क्लिक गर्नुहोस

SHARE

About Unknown