०३ · Temple
Pashupatinath
The holiest Hindu temple in Nepal, where Shiva is worshipped as lord of all living things.
Bagmati river, Kathmandu
Where
On the Bagmati, near the airport
Altitude
1,300 m
Best time
Evening aarti, daily. Maha Shivaratri in Feb or Mar
Time needed
Two to three hours
Status
UNESCO World Heritage, 1979
Photograph by Gaurav Dhwaj Khadka, CC BY-SA 4.0
The story
Pashupatinath stands on the banks of the Bagmati, a river that flows on to the Ganges. The main temple, a two tiered pagoda with a gilded roof and silver doors, holds a lingam of Shiva that pilgrims travel from all over South Asia to see.
Below the temple are the ghats where Hindus are cremated. Families wash the body in the river and light the pyre on the stone platforms, and the rites go on in the open through the day. Visitors may watch from the far bank, quietly and at a distance.
Around the main shrine are hundreds of smaller temples, shrines and rest houses, and the sadhus who live among them, smeared in ash, some for a lifetime.
What to see and do.
- ०१
Evening aarti
Each evening priests swing lamps and chant on the riverbank, with bells and the smell of incense.
- ०२
The east bank
Cross the footbridge for the view over the ghats and the line of lingam shrines on the terraces.
- ०३
Maha Shivaratri
The night of Shiva, in late winter, brings hundreds of thousands of pilgrims and sadhus from across Nepal and India.
- ०४
Gujeshwari
A short walk downriver, one of the most important temples to the goddess in the valley.
Adapted from a photograph by Gaurav Dhwaj Khadka, CC BY-SA 4.0
Before you go
What to know.
Only Hindus may enter the main temple courtyard. Everyone can walk the grounds and the east bank.
Do not photograph cremations up close or the families mourning.
Foreign visitors pay an entry fee at the gate.
Next place
Lumbiniलुम्बिनी