Place · Newar town at a confluence · Nepal
Panauti
Also known as Panauti, Panaunti, Indreshwar Mahadev, Makar Mela
A small Newar town at the confluence of the Punyamati and Roshi, holding the Indreshwar Mahadev temple — a three-tiered pagoda whose lowest storey is thirteenth-century and which is generally reckoned the oldest surviving temple structure in Nepal, with carved struts of the same date.
- Function
- Military & resistance
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 27.584, 85.515
Worth knowing
The town sits on a rock outcrop that its people say is a single stone, which is why it came through the 1934 and 2015 earthquakes far better than the valley towns. The twelve-yearly Makar Mela at the confluence is one of the few Nepali fairs on a Kumbh-like cycle, and the town is largely unaltered because no road went through it.
Connections (1)
- PrecursorBhaktapur Durbar Square
Panauti's Indreshwar Mahadev has a thirteenth-century lowest storey and carved struts of the same date, which makes it generally the oldest surviving temple structure in Nepal — older than anything standing in the three Durbar squares. The town sits on a single rock outcrop, which is why it came through the 1934 and 2015 earthquakes far better than Bhaktapur did.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Panauti”. Nepal Department of Archaeology records on the Indreshwar Mahadev struts; Mary Slusser, Nepal Mandala (1982).
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