Pashupatinath Temple
— — smoke rising slow above the river at dusk.
Not only on a wall.
“One of the great Shiva temples of the Hindu world, on the west bank of the Bagmati River. The main pagoda's gilded roofs are reserved to Hindu worshippers; the eastern bank, reached by a footbridge, opens the full view across the river and the cremation ghats. The river carries the city's oldest rhythm. The bells, the woodsmoke, the long afternoon. from the studio
Pashupatinath Temple, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Pashupatinath stands on the west bank of the Bagmati River, about five kilometres east of central Kathmandu and roughly 1,400 metres above sea level. The main pagoda — two tiers, gilded roofs, silver doors — is dedicated to Shiva in his form as Pashupati, lord of animals. The temple is one of the four most important Shiva shrines on the subcontinent and one of the seven monument zones that together form the Kathmandu Valley UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed in 1979. The full sanctuary covers some 246 hectares of riverbank, smaller shrines, and forest.
The Bagmati River is sacred to Hindus and Buddhists in equal measure, and the stretch that passes Pashupatinath is the most ritually charged length of its 597-kilometre course from the Shivapuri Hills to the Ganges plain. Cremation ghats line the western bank below the main temple; bathing ghats sit upstream. The river is also, in plain fact, heavily stressed by urban Kathmandu, and a long restoration programme has been working since 2009 to reduce pollution along the temple reach. The ritual life of the river continues regardless.
Only practising Hindus may enter the inner courtyard of the main pagoda, a rule enforced at the western gate. Non-Hindu visitors are welcome in the wider complex and reach the most complete view by crossing the footbridge to the eastern bank, where stone terraces step up the hillside opposite the temple. The site is open daily; the evening Bagmati Aarti, held around dusk by the riverside, is a public ceremony of lamps, bells, and chant. Mahashivaratri, the February or March festival of Shiva, draws crowds in the hundreds of thousands.