Sunday, November 28, 2010

Budhanilkantha Temple



Budhanilkantha Temple is located at the base of Shivapuri Hill within the Kathmandu valley on the northern side. It is also known as mystical Budhanilkantha temple or Narayanthan temple .Budhanilkantha literally means “Old Blue Throat”. It is only nine kilometer away from the main city. It is a deity of Lord Vishnu; Lord Vishnu is also known as Narayan.It is called Vishnu (Narayan) Jalasayan lying on Ananta Sesa, in the cosmic ocean. The deity is about thousand years old. Lord Vishnu is about five meter (Seventeen fits) long and lying in a thirteen meter (forty three fits) long tank, as if floating with his legs crossed with his sleeping body resting on the coils of Ananta and his 11 hooded head.His four hands hold the four symbols of Vishnu, the Shankha as conch shell, Chakra as disc,Gadha as club and Padma as lotus flower. It is believe that the deity was carved in the seventh or eighth century during the Licchavi period. Hindus can walk down the steps and touch his feet, but foreigners cannot walk and touch. It is with the sacredness of this particular god that a deep seated belief was created by King Pratap Malla through a prophetic dream. It was his strong belief and fear that should the King of Nepal visit the Budhanilkantha temple, death would be threatening immediately to fall upon his departure. The two other images of the deity which were carved during the same time lie at two particular destinationa, the Balaju Garden were public viewing can take place and the beautiful Royal Palace in Kathmandu.It is here at Budhanilkantha temple, however that public is not permitted.

The basic festival of the year is when Lord Vishnu who sleeps on the cosmic ocean during Chaturmasya periods wakes up on the Haribodhini Ekadashi day in late October or early November period. Many thousand of Hindu people come their day to celebrate their festival.

The deity of Budhanilkantha was last for a while and was later rediscovered by a farmer. It is believe that the farmer struck the buried deity with his plough and that blood come out from ground.The morning puja between Nine and ten am is interesting and enjoyable .The last deity of Budhanilkantha was recovered and place in its rightful position. It is common practice for the Hindus to walk down to Vishnu’s feet to touch them but it is forbidden for foreign visitors to do the same. It is one of the wonderful deity of Hindus but there is some improve of environment of place rest things are beautiful place once you visit never forget lifetime.

8 comments:

  1. I very happy to have information about Budanilkantha Temple
    Thanks a lot for anther

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  2. why cant foreign visitors touch it? does this not violate the precepts of sanantana dharma?

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  3. For your kind information, Nilkantha is the name given to lord Shiva after he swallowed the Halaahal bish( poison) which emerged during Samundra manthan for Amrit. In due course he swallowed and kept the poison in his throat as he could also die if he swallowed fully, his throat turned into blue due to poison and hence named Nilkantha.So the description itself is full of flaws. It is said that Kiratas temple was located there and after the invasion Hindu kings build the temple on the top of the same site. Which ultimately lead to cast the curse on the royal family and the royal family never visits or visited the site from then on as seen in a dream. Instead they build the copy of narayan sleeping on his Sheshnaag in Baisedhara and worshipped there. There is also saying that if alcohol or brewed local beer kodo ko jaand ( Limbu peoples alcoholic beverage) is offered then the god of kiratas would rise. So still following the belief, even a drop of alcohol and a grain of kodo or millet is prohibited to take inside. There's still a strict supervision of police force on the gate of the temple. The initial budha was kept same but the last word was replaced by nilkantha. But in course made a blunder mistake of naming lord Vishnu by the name of Shiva. Budha word is itself similar to the name Budha Subba the temple in Dharan.

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  4. I visited this wonderful place many times in the early 1980's, when it was overgrown, and there were still live snakes in the water...and though I am a 'foreigner', there were no restrictions...

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  5. Hey what r u saying

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  6. I am so excited to visit it tomorrow.......

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  7. The name budhanilkantha is said to be because the statue was found by an old man named nilkantha , (hence, budha - nilkantha) while digging his field. The name is not a mistake and is not an allusion to mahadev.

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