Nagendra Sharma
It’s Saturday afternoon. Outside my Kathmandu window the rain is making bubbles rise in a million puddles. A poor, thoroughly wet little girl just threw a marigold in one of them, spilling ripples that went circling over. The flower floated along, slowly, beautifully…
My mind went into ripples too, recalling ancient times, and days bygone. There also, a flower floated-a lotus on a legendary lake.
A huge lake it was, so they say. Water, water everywhere, engulfing all of today’s Kathmandu valley and more, stretching miles and miles around it. Homes and habitations were non-existent and the only humans around were some curious and occasional visitors from distant lands and strange chimes, who came to admire the near-celestial beauty of the mythical waters.
One such personage was Vipaswi Buddha. He threw a lovely lotus into this vast, sprawling lake. As it went circling over, he chanted hymns and prophesized: “This bud will blossom one fine morning to reveal Swayambhu, the Self-Born, in the form of a flame.”
Eons passed by, and when Sikhi Buddha paid a visit to this lake, it had seemingly started drying up, for he exclaimed with pleasure: “A delightful valley this will soon be.” By the time the third Buddha, Vishwanbhuva, was here, a Bodhisatva had already “caused” land to appear at places above the waters.
The Buddhist would have us believe that Manjushree, a Chinese savant, split the engulfing hillside at Chowbar, with strokes of his sword until the waters of the lake were released. Others would have the credit for the outlet go to Vishwakarma, the Hindu Designer of the Universe, and a re-incarnation of Lord Vishnu. To watch in admiration the Chobhar gorge today, with the combined Bagmati, Vishnumati and other rivers gushing out of the valley and cascading countless feet down the rocks through a narrow, gurgling hill-chasm, is to be convinced of this pre-historic, if not legendary, human effort.
Also stands amidst us today, in all its majestic architectural splendor and with all its halo of a romantic heritage, the towering stupa of Swayambhunath, atop the fabled “Hill of The Lotus Lake”, in Kathmandu’s vicinity. This stupa, many accounts agree, was constructed by the disciples of Manjushree who cherished in their memories this momentous event of a millennium. The sanctified spot of the legendary lotus and the Swayambhu (Self-born) flame is where the shrine is believed to stand today.
The first human to hold the reins of regal authority over Kathmandu valley’s human habitation following the draining of its waters was the Puranic Dharmakara, himself a reputed disciple of Manjushree. Then came, from far away Bengal, king Prachanda Deva to pay obeisance to the Guhyeswari shrine that he himself possibly built. It was followed by the Pashupatinath temple built under the patronage of Dharmadutta, a king of distant Kunjeeveram in south India. Another famous landmark, the Bodhnath stupa, is the legacy left to posterity by Manadeva, the Lichhavi king.
If Suprabha, where Yalambar, the first Kirat King of Nepal, held his royal court, was the first human habitation that sprung up after the lake dried up, Jitedasi, seventh in line of his succession and an ally of the Pandavas in their internecine war against the Kauravas, seemingly did likewise. Indications are that the present Thankot, an entry point to Kathmandu Valley from the south, was the site of the ancient Suprabha.
But what particular charm did the legendary lake and the settlements that sprang up later in the relatively inaccessible Himalayan fastnesses held for visitors and savants from China and India, must always remain a guess. Why, one would like to surmise, was Manjushree, who found it a lake, bent upon leaving his marks here in monuments of marble, with all his life’s toils? What must have the waves of the Lotus lake whispered into the ears of so many Buddhas with voiceless woe?
No kindred of the original flame is here to guide us in our surmises. And no flower to reflect the blush of the Self-born at Swayambhu.
We only ruminate, and reminisce, but hardly go beyond a void, a vision, almost a waking dream of the past that is no more, of the glory bygone, but which, nevertheless, gave Kathmandu, nay Nepal herself, a habitation and a name.
[Late Nagendra Sharma was a folklorist, biographer and journalist.]