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Abstract
The Newar monastic compounds of the Kathmandu Valley (bāhāḥs and bahīs) are the centres of what is arguably the world's oldest continuously practised form of Buddhism. This article presents a preliminary analysis of a survey that revisited these compounds 25 years after the publication of John Locke's exhaustive study in order to understand how these fundamental institutions of Newar Buddhism have been affected by the radical transformations that Nepalese society has undergone since then. It suggests that Newar practitioners of the dharma have often expressed their devotion in ways that are at once traditional and vitally innovative, transforming these compounds as well as the means through which they transform them in myriad ways. The conspicuous democratisation of sponsorship of ‘repairs’ has resulted in alterations that conform to notions of authenticity—old and new, Newar and foreign—as well as deliberate departures from tradition.
Notes
1 This is not to deny that these practices are clearly based upon a continuously developed Tantric Buddhist tradition that has its roots in what is now India. See David N. Gellner, Monk, Householder, and Tantric Priest: Newar Buddhism and Its Hierarchy of Ritual (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 251–68.
2 Michael Allen, ‘Buddhism without Monks: The Vajrayana Religion of the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley’, in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Vol. 2 (1973), pp. 1–3.
3 John K. Locke, Buddhist Monasteries of Nepal (Kathmandu: Sahayogi Press, 1985), p. iv.
4 Bernier has called the bāhāḥ ‘the basic unit of city planning’ in Kathmandu Valley towns. Ronald Bernier, ‘Survival of Wooden Art in Nepal: Three Masterworks’, in Himalaya, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies, Vol. 4, no. 2 (January 1984), p. 59.
5 Todd Thornton Lewis, The Tuladhars of Kathmandu: A Study of Buddhist Tradition in a Newar Merchant Community, Doctoral Dissertation, Graduate School of Arts and Science, Columbia University, New York, 1984.
6 Gellner, Monk, Householder, and Tantric Priest, p. 22. See also Dharmaswamin's thirteenth-century observations regarding celibate monks in Nepal. Dilli Raman Regmi, Medieval Nepal 1, Early Medieval Period: 750–1530 A.D. (Calcutta: Mukhopadhyay, 1965), p. 561, as cited in Allen, ‘Buddhism without Monks’, p. 4.
7 Locke notes that there is already evidence of the influence of Tantric Buddhist masters in Nepal by the beginning of the eleventh century, and Gellner cites evidence that there may have been married monks in Nepal as early as 1069 (CE). Locke, Buddhist Monasteries of Nepal, p. 3; and Gellner, Monk, Householder, and Tantric Priest, p. 22.
8 It may seem perverse to put forth this argument in an article intended to honour Michael Allen, who asserted in the title of the article cited above that Newar Buddhism was ‘without monks’. Clearly, it has not had monks in the conventional sense for five or six centuries, and it is in this sense that Allen used the term. Allen, Buddhism without Monks, p. 4.
9 This term is problematic because it is often used to refer exclusively to Śākyas, and those to whom it refers consider it impolite. Gregory Sharkey, Buddhist Daily Ritual: The Nitya Puja in Kathmandu Valley Shrines (Bangkok: Orchid Press, 2001), p. 26.
10 Locke, Buddhist Monasteries of Nepal, p. 35.
11 This term refers to shaving the initiate's head, including the cūḍā lock, whereby he symbolically renounces caste.
12 Sharkey, Buddhist Daily Ritual, p. 32.
13 Ibid., p. 33. Gellner and Locke support both of these arguments, noting in particular the recalcitrance on the part of bahī members to comply with Siddhinarsingh's seventeenth-century attempt to reform their inconveniently autonomous ways as self-proclaimed ‘monks of an otherworldly (nirvāṇik) monastery’. David Gellner, The Anthropology of Buddhism and Hinduism (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 162; Locke, Buddhist Monasteries of Nepal, p. 187; and Daniel Wright, Munshi Shew Shunker Singh, and Pandit Shri Gunanand, History of Nepal (New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, [1877] 1993), p. 185.
14 Locke, Buddhist Monasteries of Nepal, p. 6. Locke further notes that all bāhāḥs and bahīs include a caitya in their courtyards (p. 6), a feature that Gellner describes as one of their essential attributes. Gellner, The Anthropology of Buddhism and Hinduism, p. 148.
15 Gellner, The Anthropology of Buddhism and Hinduism, p. 158.
16 Locke, Buddhist Monasteries of Nepal, p. 9. Locke refers to these as ‘private bāhāḥs’, whereas Gellner refers to them as ‘lineage bāhāḥs’. Gellner, The Anthropology of Buddhism and Hinduism, p. 165.
17 Gellner, The Anthropology of Buddhism and Hinduism, p. 165.
18 Locke, Buddhist Monasteries of Nepal, p. 9.
19 Gellner, The Anthropology of Buddhism and Hinduism, p. 165.
20 Allen, Buddhism without Monks, pp. 6, 7.
21 Locke, Buddhist Monasteries of Nepal, p. 5.
22 The population of the Kathmandu Valley reported in Nepal's 1981 census was 363,507. See Barry Haack and Ann Rafter, ‘Urban Growth Analysis and Modeling in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal’, in Habitat International, Vol. 30, no. 4 (2006), pp. 1056–65. The census of 2011 reported a Kathmandu Valley population of 2.15 million, ‘Census 2011: Country's Population 26.6m’, Kathmandu Post (27 Sept. 2011) [http://www.ekantipur.com/the-kathmandu-post/2011/09/27/top-story/census-2011-countrys-population-26.6m/226749.html, accessed 25 Nov. 2012], thereby reaching a population density of 4,408 persons per square kilometre, 22 times that of the nation as a whole. See ‘Census Preliminary Report’ [http://gov.np/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Population-Census-Preliminary-Report-2011.pdf, accessed 25 Nov. 2012].
23 Locke, Buddhist Monasteries of Nepal, p. 15.
24 Ibid., p. 16.
25 The World Bank estimates a total of more than US$4 billion in remittances to Nepal in 2011, representing 20 percent of its 2010 GDP. ‘The World Bank, Prospects: Migration and Remittances Data, Inflows’ [http://econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTDECPROSPECTS/0,contentMDK:22759429∼page PK:64165401∼piPK:64165026∼theSitePK:476883,00.html#Remittances, accessed 25 Nov. 2012].
26 ‘OHCR Nepal Conflict Report: Executive Summary’ (Geneva: United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, October 2012), p. 3.
27 Pratapaditya Pal, Nepal: Where the Gods Are Young (New York: Asia Society, 1975). Stella Kramrich's 1964 catalogue and exhibition, which she curated at New York's Asia Society Gallery, also raised awareness of Nepalese art in the international community, though art theft from publically accessible sites seems to have peaked during the early to middle 1980s. See Lain Singh Bangdel, Stolen Images of Nepal (Kathmandu: Royal Nepal Academy, 1989), and Jürgen Schick, The Gods Are Leaving the Country: Art Theft from Nepal (Bangkok: White Orchid Books, 1998).
28 These figures are based on the 260 vihāras in Kathmandu and Patan that Locke was able to locate in his survey, which I was also able to find.
29 Assessing changes in more subtle security measures is difficult due to the very low-quality photographic reproductions that illustrate Locke's survey.
30 Other means of securing vihāras from theft included other forms of gates, grilles that enclosed only toraṇas or other features, and the regular securing of the entire bāhāḥ complex by locking the main entrance doors. I consider such features as removable toraṇas, fine woodcarvings, or images that would be accessible from outside the kwāḥpāḥdyaḥ shrine as being of potential interest to thieves.
31 This discrepancy may be due to the facts that Patan boasts the most elaborately and ornately decorated bāhāḥs and bahīs in the Valley and that their residents are much more likely to be saṅgha members than their counterparts in Kathmandu, where residential spaces are often rented out to others.
32 Hera Kaji Vajracarya, Yaśodhar Mahāvihār Saṃgha: Chagū Adhyayana (Lalitpur: Lotus Research Center, 1993), p. vii.
33 See Schick, The Gods Are Leaving the Country, pp. 98–9.
34 The repoussé images were executed by the famed Bhim Śākya of U Bāhāḥ, Patan. The paintings date from 1966 and are based on an earlier set painted on wood and produced about 150 years earlier. John K. Locke, Karunamaya: The Cult of Avalokitesvara-Matsyendranath in the Valley of Nepal (Kathmandu: Sahayogi Prakashan for the Research Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies, Tribhuvan University, 1980), p. 133, fn. 14. They are also the basis for the most authoritative Newari work on the iconography of Avalokiteśvara, to wit Amoghabajra Vajrācārya, Lokeśvaraya Paricaya (Kathmandu: Madan Printing Press, N.S. 1099 [1979]).
35 In addition to Nala Dyaḥ of Lokeśvara Bāhāḥ in Nala, two other shrines are always included in the list of the Lokeśvaras of the four places (pengu tāye Lokeśvara): Co Bāhāḥ Dyaḥ of Cobhar's Co Bāhāḥ; and Bungadyaḥ of Patan's Ta Bāhāḥ. Residents of Patan include Cakwadyaḥ of Tanga Bāhāḥ in Patan and regard Jana Bāhāḥ Dyaḥ as peripheral to this favoured group.
36 Hem Raj Shakya, Śri Svayambhū Mahācaitya (Min Bahadur Shakya trans.) (Kathmandu: Swayambhu Vikash Mandal, 2004), pp. 470, 530.
37 Gellner identifies the conceptualisation of the pañcabuddhas as being a critical development in the emergence of Newar Vajrayāna Buddhism. Gellner, Monk, Householder, and Tantric Priest, pp. 251–2. This concept is also fully developed earlier in the Guhyasamāja Tantra. David Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism: Indian Buddhists and Their Tibetan Successors, Vol. 1 (Boston: Shambala, 1987), p. 178.
38 Gellner, Monk, Householder, and Tantric Priest, p. 113.
39 See Sarah LeVine and David N. Gellner, Rebuilding Buddhism: The Theravada Movement in Twentieth-Century Nepal (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), pp. 107–8.
40 Wooden features of Newar palaces, temples, and other ornately-decorated buildings have long been polychromed with relatively short-lived water-based paints. The more recent use of enamel paints (as in Tham Bahī) raises numerous issues from aesthetic, historical, and preservationist perspectives, but requires far less frequent re-painting.
41 This number refers to those efforts at restoration that I believe would receive at least grudging approval from people interested in maintaining the ‘traditional’ appearance, if not the fabric, of these buildings.
42 The Guji Bāhāḥ saṅgha is comprised solely of Śākyas.
43 I thank Iain Sinclair for this identification.
44 See Bruce McCoy Owens, ‘Monumentality, Identity, and the State: Local Practice, World Heritage, and Heterotopia at Swayambhu, Nepal’, in Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 75, no. 2 (2002), pp. 278–80.
45 Kazumi Yoshizaki, ‘On the Economic Status of the Modern Newari Buddhist Monasteries’, in Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies (Indogaku Bukkyogaku Kenkyu), Vol. 50, no. 2 (2002), pp. 778–4. I thank Iain Sinclair for suggesting this reference and Nanako Ota for translating it.
46 Locke, Buddhist Monasteries of Nepal, p. 170.
47 Sharkey, Buddhist Daily Ritual, pp. 291–2.
48 Michael Allen, ‘Procession and Pilgrimage in Newar Religion’, in Australian Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 3, no. 3 (1992), pp. 130–44.