Place · Shiva temple city · Nepal
Pashupatinath
Also known as Bhatta priests, Karnataka priests, Pashupati
The great Shiva temple of the Kathmandu valley on the Bagmati, with cremation ghats that make it function for Nepal much as Kashi's Manikarnika does for the plains. Its chief priests (the Bhaṭṭas) are, by long convention, Karnataka Brahmins — an arrangement Nepali tradition ascribes to Ādi Shankara.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Tradition
- Shaiva tradition; Nepali royal ritual
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 27.711, 85.349
Connections (5)
- Shankara arrangementAdi Shankaracharya
The chief priests of Pashupatinath in Kathmandu must by rule be Karnataka Brahmins, and the rule is traditionally ascribed to Adi Shankaracharya — so a Kerala philosopher's arrangement is said to govern who may serve Nepal's national shrine to this day. In practice the Bhaṭṭa priests are recruited from the coastal Karnataka Rigvedic communities around Udupi and Kundapura, trained in Vedic ritual there, and formally appointed by the Nepali state.
- Teaching lineageUdupi
The Bhaṭṭa head priests of Pashupatināth in Kathmandu are recruited exclusively from coastal Karnataka and the adjacent Malenāḍu — Udupi, Dakshina Kannada, Uttara Kannada and Chikkamagaluru — from Rigvedic Brahmin communities of the Shivalli and Kota traditions. They are trained in Vedic ritual at home and then formally appointed in Nepal, which means Nepal's principal national temple has been staffed for centuries by men who grow up two thousand kilometres away and speak Tulu or Kannada.
- Teaching lineageGokarna
Gokarna, Kundapura and Udupi are the towns the Pashupatināth priesthood is drawn from, and the convention is traced in Nepali tradition to Ādi Shankara, who is said to have ruled that only South Indian Brahmins might serve the shrine. The rule has held through the Malla kings, the Shah dynasty and the republic. When the Nepali government appointed local priests in 2009 there were protests and court cases, and the Karnataka appointments were restored.
- Karnataka priesthoodShringeri Śāradā Pīṭham
Nepali tradition traces the rule that only Karnataka Brahmins may serve as Pashupatināth's head priests to Ādi Shankara, and the Shringeri maṭha stands behind the arrangement as the southern seat of his order. Whatever its origin, the convention has survived the Mallas, the Shahs and the republic, and an attempt to change it in 2009 was reversed. A south Indian monastery's reach into a Himalayan state temple is the oldest working example of the kind in the subcontinent.
- Shared sacred geographySwayambhūnāth
The valley's Buddhist and Shaiva geographies are not separate. Swayambhunath's origin story explains the valley itself, Pashupatinath's priests come from Karnataka by convention, and Newar households take part in both calendars; several shrines are given a Buddhist and a Hindu identity at once. This is the clearest surviving instance of a shared Indic ritual landscape anywhere.
On these journeys
Sources
Pashupatinath Temple — UNESCO
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