By Devendra Gautam
December 30, 2021 was a black day for Nepal in terms of heritage preservation.
On that day, vandals caused damage to a stone inscription installed on a section of the historic Hanumandhoka Durbar in Kathmandu.
Does it indicate rising incidents of vandalism targeted at heritages, which include graffiti on Peru’s Chan Chan (around mid-January, 2020) and Rome’s Colosseum (June-July, 2023) and damage to a part of the Great Wall of China using an excavator (late August, 2023), not to mention the destruction of war-torn sites in Ukraine and Libya.
UNESCO mentions in its website that the cultural heritage of the Kathmandu Valley is illustrated by seven groups of monuments and buildings which display the full range of historic and artistic achievements for which the Kathmandu Valley is world famous. The seven include the Durbar Squares of Hanuman Dhoka (Kathmandu), Patan and Bhaktapur, the Buddhist stupas of Swayambhu and Bauddhanath and the Hindu temples of Pashupati and Changu Narayan.
What were government authorities, including law enforcement, doing on heritage protection front at the time of the attack on one of the seven UNESCO-inscribed monument zones that make the Kathmandu Valley one of the four UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Nepal (cultural and natural), the other three being Lumbini, Chitwan National Park and Sagarmatha National Park?
Who knows?
Media reports published right after the incident quoted Sandeep Khanal, the chief of the Hanumandhoka Herchah Adda under the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, as saying that his office had collected all pieces of the inscription and kept them safe, and was consulting experts on how to (re)install the inscription.
Subsequently, the office informed the Metropolitan Police Circle, Hanumandhoka, and the Department of Archaeology about the incident.
Since the business unusual of December 30, it has been business as usual on the heritage protection front.
Kavindra and his writing on the wall
Let’s delve a bit into the stone inscription attributed to ‘Kavindra’.
Who on Earth is Kavindra, by the way?
A Sanskrit word meaning the king of poets, Kavindra is the nom de guerre of Pratap Malla, the eight Malla king of Kantipur who ruled from 1641 to 1674 AD. He expanded borders, secured a lucrative Tibet trade monopoly, and built major Durbar Square landmarks like the Hanuman Dhoka palace, Kal Bhairab (installed), and Rani Pokhari.
Written in 15 different languages, including Sanskrit, Nepal Bhasa (Newari), Nepali, Persian, Tibetan, Arabic and European languages like Greek, English and French, the inscription, a poetic homage to Goddess Kali, is a testament of sorts to the monarch’s linguistic skills.
Legends suggest that milk will flow from the spout installed on the wall if a person manages to read the inscription in its entirety.
A playground and a refuge
One fine March evening, when the country was at a crossroads again amid the counting of votes in national elections, this intrepid walker took a walk around the Hanumandhoka Durbar Square and found the inscription reinstalled on the wall, with scars from the December 30 incident. With a palpable fear of the unknown, this sapien tried to decipher the letters but could not go beyond a few letters in English, Sanskrit and Nepali.
Close by, a group of children were playing cricket and their bowling, batting and fielding was not causing much convenience to strollers as well as tourists. By the way, this is not the first time this observer has seen such a game in progress at the monument zone.
By the side of Kal Bhairav, very young footballers were honing their skills.
And at the historic monument of Kasthamandap, a drunken man was vomiting expletives profusely and a woman was trying hard to pacify him. Inside it, a couple of shelterless people were sleeping while an occasional guide was explaining a small group of tourists about the monument.
Wake up and act
Located in the midst of settlements, our monument sites form a very important part of our everyday life and that’s why they are living heritages. A sense of community ownership has also kept these sites more or less intact, over the generations. On several occasions, these communities have stood up against powerful sections of the society to prevent the theft of the heritages.
Granted that there’s a shortage of playgrounds, especially for our great sportspersons of the future, that the homeless too have the right to shelter, but should our historic sites also become a refuge for humanity in need and a playground, with divinity and humanity both watching a match or two or one too many to kill their ‘boredom’ and also making room for the needy for the sake of company?
Do these kinds of activities not pose a threat to the living heritages, both cultural and natural?
This observer feels that the nation should step up vigil in and around our cultural and natural heritage sites, from riverbanks to high mountains, from roadside idols to UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
It’s time for our very competent government authorities to take up and act, in coordination with local communities.
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