There is a temple in Patan with unpronounceable name Ratomachhendranath. It is dedicated to Machhendra - the god of rain and harvest who for unknown to me reason is redskinned (hence the prefix "Rato" meaning "red"). Interestingly, this Hindu Machhendra revered by Buddhists as Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara so the temple looks like Hindu-Buddhist - with many-armed demons on the friezes of the temple and with Buddhist rotating prayer drums around the perimeter of the building.
The temple is a typical example of Nepalese architecture, it is three-storied pagoda. It was built back in 1673.
At the entrance, as usually, there are two guards, in this case they are the lions. What I had somehow not noticed before, that the guards are always he and she. Only in this temple I noticed it for the first time. Inside the temple there is a statue of Avalokitesvara-Machhendra, red, in a brocade dress and ornaments.
As always, I began to study the beams of the temple, which traditionally are decorated with various scenes, usually domestic or erotic. To my surprise, here I saw a very different scenes - of violence.
Some made a really terrible impression. I asked about it the man who works in the temple. It turns out, these scenes depict the suffering of sinners in hell. I see ... The only thing that remained unclear, why these scenes were selected to be showns exactly in this temple because in fact Machhendra is considered benevolent, generous God, certainly not evil and not bloodthirsty.
Nice pictures. But I too don't understand why there is so much erotic scene in Nepali Temples.
ReplyDeleteThe festival of pulling the chariot of this Red machhindranath is soon to come. I am very much excited.
ReplyDelete@ aakar yaar ktm is city of love tyasaile hola, but i read somewhere it was to aware ppl to have this act and make babies
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