Bhairavnath Temple
The Bhairavnath Temple is located on the Taumadhi Square, southeast of Durbar Square in Bhaktapur , Nepal . He is consecrated to Bhairava ( भैरव , "the terrible"), a form of Shiva .
History and structure
A temple dedicated to this deity stood on this site as early as 1600. In contrast to the Nyatapola Temple , the Bhairavnath Temple has a rectangular floor plan. The fact that the cult image is not, as is usually the case, on the level of the entrance, but on an upper floor, suggests that the Bhairava temple has its origins in an urban residential building. This would also explain that the building does not have any kind of pedestal, which is otherwise the basis of every Nepalese temple. The temple, which was initially built as a single storey, was extended by two storeys around 1718 under the rule of King Bhupatindra Malla. The temple was reconstructed after being severely damaged by the 1934 earthquake.
The original height is still indicated today by a roof attachment on the first roof, which consists of three Kalashas and is repeated on the top roof. The increase by two floors was probably due to cultic reasons, because the mother goddess residing in an oversized temple (Nyatapola, 1703) was not supposed to crush Bhairava. To restore the cultic balance, two floors were added in 1718. The west-facing portrait of Bhairava today looks out onto the square through a series of five gilded windows.
literature
- Abhijit Shakya, Asheshwor Man Shrestha, Binay Rajan Shrestha, Prabesh Joshi, Ujwal Nanda Vaidya: A Report on Nyatapola-a marvel of Nepalese Architecture . Institute of Engineering, Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Pulchowk Campus. ( online in the Internet Archive , in English, with further literature).
Web links
Coordinates: 27 ° 40 ′ 15.8 " N , 85 ° 25 ′ 46.3" E