Kathman-2: A Tale of Two Temples

Nepal is about 80% Hindu, 10% Buddhist, 5% Muslim, 4% Christian, and 1% other.  The two largest traditions, Buddhism and Hinduism, have been living harmoniously here for centuries.  

(Here's a Buddha all decorated for a Hindu festival)

The influence of Hinduism is fully evident in Nepal.  The country holds the cow sacred--it's illegal to kill cows in Nepal (they serve yak and "buff," or water buffalo, instead of beef here).  The goddess Sita was born in Nepal.  And Kathmandu is home to a number of important Hindu pilgrimage sites in Nepal, chief among them the Pashupatinath Temple, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  You know me: never one to pass up a UNESCO site.  So I grabbed a taxi and went to Pashupatinath. 

And whoa, it was not what I was expecting.  Yes, it's a holy site, one of the places to which devout Hindus make pilgrimage once in their lives.  Situated on the banks of the Bagmati River, it's a huge complex of temples and shrines, ashrams, and basic structures where the sick or elderly can take shelter and be cared for.  The place is teeming with free-range cows, pilgrims who don't have money to get back to wherever they started, infirm folks, and...funerals.  By "funerals," I mean, huge gatherings of people from all over the country who bring their dead to this place to cremate them.  Like, right there on the riverbank, in the open air.  With lots of keening and ceremony and so. much. smoke.  Wikipedia tells me that "the cremation zone of the temple complex falls under 'Lhundrup Tsek' or 'Spontaneous Mound charnel ground' and is revered among the eight great charnal grounds where Padmasambhava meditated and gained spiritual accomplishments."  I do not know enough about Hinduism to know the spiritual significance of the place, But I can tell you that I was the only white lady there and I felt that I absolutely should not be.  I should not have been sold an inexpensive ticket and ushered in as if it were just another cool photo opportunity for Instagram. It wasn't just the pervasive smell of human cremation; it was the fact that I was obviously a tourist there among people's observances of the transition from life to death.  I felt conspicuous and inappropriate, an intruder.  I stayed for about 20 minutes before striding purposefully to the nearest exit, which wasn't near enough.  I don't think I had any sense that a UNESCO site might not just mark a place of ancient significance but a place where people's private living and dying goes on yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

I hailed the first taxi I found and asked to be taken to the Boudhanath Stupa, another UNESCO site about 10 minutes by car away.  The Boudhanath Stupa is Kathmandu's largest Buddhist shrine, and the center of Tibetan Buddhism, and as I understand it, the stupa embodies the enlightened minds of all the buddhas.  It includes relics of both body parts and artifacts, but the vibe here is just totally different.  If at Pashupatinath I felt like I absolutely should not be there, gawking and gangly and over-tall and -pale, at the Boudhanath I felt absolutely welcome.  Indeed, one of the monks that inhabits the monastery adjacent to Boudhanath gestured me over, chanted some prayers above me, and tied a colorful string about ten times around my wrist before knotting it and pointing to the knot, saying, "For beginnings and endings."  At every turn here--whether circumambulating the stupa or walking upon its dome or spinning prayer wheels around the square or sitting for chanting in the monastery, I was invited in, greeted, enfolded in the rhythms and the values of the place.  

(I'm telling you: unless you run away, someone's gonna give you tikka.)

I am embarrassingly unfamiliar with the deep particulars of Hinduism and Buddhism, and I don't feel like I have any authority to weigh in on the practices of these two traditions.  But my contrasting experiences of these two places has left me more than a little unsettled as I try to coordinate my relative sense of belonging/participation with my interactions.  I'll think about this for a long time.