01Narayan on the waters
Bhagwan lies on his back, legs crossed, four hands holding conch, chakra, gada and a lotus, while eleven hooded heads of Shesha rise behind his crown. The tank around him stands for the ocean of milk. Priests climb onto the image each morning to bathe and dress him, and pilgrims walk the tank’s edge to see his face. The valley’s tradition says the spring that fills the tank comes from Gosaikunda, the lake Mahadev made with his trishul after drinking the halahala. That is why the image carries a name of Shiva, Nilakantha, the blue-throated, though it is Vishnu who lies here.
02The king who may not look
A custom of the valley forbade the kings of Nepal to look on Budhanilkantha. It is told that King Pratap Malla in the 17th century saw in a dream that a king who looked on this image would die, and the Shah kings kept the rule after the Mallas. A smaller copy of the reclining Narayan was made for the palace garden at Balaju, so the kings could worship without breaking it. The great day here is Haribodhini Ekadashi in Kartik, when Narayan wakes from his four months of sleep and tens of thousands come before dawn.
The life of this place
- c. 7th centuryThe reclining Narayan is carved in the Licchavi period.
- 1641–1674Reign of Pratap Malla, to whom the rule barring kings from darshan is traced.
About 10 km north of central Kathmandu, at the foot of Shivapuri. Only Hindus may enter the inner enclosure; others see the image from the railing.
