Idol reinstalled in Jay Bageshwari's Brahma Temple

By A Staff Reporter,Kathmandu, Nov. 6: An idol of Lord Brahma has been reinstalled in the transformed Brahma Temple in Jay Bageshwari Gayatri Road in Kathmandu Metropolitan City Ward No. 8. 

 The idol was reinstalled on Monday at the historic sixth-century Brahma Temple.

The four-faced idol of Brahma, which had been at the Gaushala Police Station for the past 40 years, was placed in a Buggy and brought to the temple, playing a music on Monday.

         The statue restoration ceremony was attended by Ashman Sangat, coordinator of the Heritage and Tourism Committee of Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) and chairman of Ward No. 8 and Deputy Mayor of the KMC Sunita Dangol and Acting Executive Director of the Pashupati Area Development Trust, ward members, and others.

      This historical temple with the four-faced statue of Brahma, built in the sixth century, had collapsed in the great earthquake in 1934, and the four-faced idol of Brahma was stolen.

      The stolen statue was later found in the Dhobi Khola and had been kept at the Gaushala Police Station for 40 years. Similarly, the temple was further damaged by the earthquake in 2015.

   According to Ward Chairperson Sangat, the temple had been lost for more than 100 years. There were only bushes in this place. After an excavation conducted with the help of the Department of Archaeology, its antiquity was studied. From this, it is estimated that the temple was built between the 6th and 7th centuries.

     Sangat further said that after not finding documents related to the structure and nature of the temple, they had archaeologists reconstruct the temple based on the shape of the land and the materials used. 

      The temple was rebuilt by a contractor at a cost of approximately Rs. 11.5 million. The temple is constructed using soil, bricks, and wood. It is a two-storied pagoda-style structure. The newly reconstructed temple will be officially inaugurated on November 7.