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Description: | Photograph of the Bhairav / Nasa Dyo Shrine in Bhaktapur, Nepal, from an album of 30 prints credited to Herzog and Higgins, taken in ca. 1901 and part of the Curzon Collection. Bhaktapur (or Bhadgaon), 11 kms east of Kathmandu and 10 kms north-east of Patan, is the youngest of the three former city-states of the Kathmandu Valley. Very little associates it with the Lichchavi period (300-800 AD) and it seems to have grown in mediaeval times with the opening of a new trans-Himalayan trade route. It became powerful as the capital of the united Malla kingdom. In the 15th century when the kingdom was divided in three parts, it had to share its supremacy in the Kathmandu Valley with Patan and Kathmandu. This resulted in each city-state being embellished with architecture and spacious quadrangles as successive rulers tried to outdo one another. Bhaktapur, Patan and Kathmandu each have a Durbar Square built around the royal palace. It was a king of Bhaktapur who helped usher the end of the Malla dynasty by asking the Gurkha leader Prithvi Narain Shah to assist him in a feud with Kathmandu. With this pretext, the Gurkhas conquered the Valley by 1769, Bhaktapur being the last of the three cities to capitulate. A short alleyway links the eastern end of Durbar Square to Taumadhi Tol where there are two grand temples, one being the three-storey Bhairava Temple, dedicated to Bhairava, a fierce form of Shiva. At ground level on the western side of this temple there is a niche containing a small image of Bhairava, regarded as Nasa Dyo, which is worshipped by passersby and is flanked with guardian lions and bronze bells. | License: | http://www.bl.uk/services/copy/permission.html | Rights holder: | British Library | Subjects: | Hinduism Hindu Temples Temples Sacred Architecture Architecture Faith and Religion People And Society | Source: | Collect Britain | Creator: | Herzog and Higgins | Identifier: | http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/personal... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
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