Shrines as the Focal Point of Buddhist Communities

The Svayambhu chaitya (in modern times also known as Svayambhu-nath) is the most important shrine for the tradition of Indian Buddhism that survives in the Kathmandu Valley among the original inhabitants, the Newars—a unique survival on the South Asian subcontinent, where otherwise Mahayana Buddhism had all but disappeared by the thirteenth century. (Chaitya is the term commonly used in the Nepalese tradition instead of “stupa,” the standard term for the massive, hemispherical buildings enshrining the relics of the Buddha and worshipped through circumambulation.) Svayambhu, located about a mile west of Kathmandu on top of a hillock, is accepted by all Newar Buddhists, beyond the borders imposed by locality and caste as the center of their religion (fig. 2).

The Kathmandu Valley is located on the southern flank of the Himalayas, sandwiched between the Gangetic plane of India and Tibet, along major trade routes—a situation that made it an important conduit for the transmission of Indian Buddhism to Tibet. Across the centuries Tibetan pilgrims and translators of Buddhist scriptures have stayed at Svayambhu. The chaitya repeatedly attracted major donations from Tibetan Buddhists, including sponsorship of renovations, the most recent example being the regilding of the chaitya’s spire (fig. 3) and niches undertaken by the Nyingma Institute of Berkeley, California, from 2008 to 2010.1 Since at least the early nineteenth century the Tibetan tradition has also been present in the form of Drukpa Kagyu and Karma Kagyu monasteries in the immediate vicinity of the chaitya.

The Structure of the Svayambhu Chaitya

Despite the role Tibetan sponsors have played in its history, the Svayambhu chaitya has retained through the ages its characteristic Nepalese form and appearance (fig. 4).2 The massive dome, almost 28 feet (8.5 meters) high, is surmounted by a cuboid structure (harmika) some 16½ feet (5 meters) high. From the center of the harmika rises the upper part of the massive wooden pole (yashti) that extends through the whole structure vertically, from the dome through the harmika, and through the series of thirteen gilded rings (chakravali) up to the structure supporting the finial (gajur) and crowning parasol (chattra). The portion of the yashti rising above the harmika measures nearly 40 feet (12 meters), giving the chaitya a total height of more than 82 feet (25 meters). Each side of the harmika is adorned by a pair of eyes (fig. 5); the nose-like curl, a derivative of the tuft of hair between the eyes of the Buddha (urna) and the light it emits, was not added until the early twentieth century.3

These eyes are often identified with the Buddha and his compassionate and all-knowing gaze, and the copper shields mounted above the harmika’s sides, which give the impression of headgear crowning the harmika, reinforce this identification. Fittingly, the Newari language designates the dome as belly (pvata), and the yashti can be equated with the spine, as happens in the Tibetan tradition, which refers to it as life tree (sok shing). However, such an identification of the structure with the body of the Buddha, including his eyes, is not presumed in the corresponding mythological narratives, nor is it enacted in ritual, where the eyes are instead equated with the sun and moon—as are the sides of the harmika elsewhere in the Buddhist world.4

Inside the dome, the yashti rests on a rock protruding 11 feet (3.3 meters) above the otherwise level surface of the hilltop. This rock, entirely encased by the dome, is invisible, but architectural drawings and ritual chronicles attest to its existence, as do measurements of the overall length of the yashti (that is, just over 72 feet, or 22 meters), which bear out that it does not reach all the way down to the level of the ground. The chaitya attained the measurements given here only in the seventeenth century, when it was enlarged by roughly a third,5but the rock has always been encased in the dome. Given the sanctity the Nepalese attribute to rocks, particularly those in a prominent position, we may conjecture that the protruding rock had been worshipped even before the advent of Buddhism, and that the chaitya was built above it so as to incorporate this autochthonous site into the fold of Buddhism.6 Certainly the site is much more than a holy place dedicated to Buddhahood. Adjacent to the chaitya is a temple dedicated to the mother goddess Hariti (fig. 6 and 7), whom the Newars worship here to assure the health of their children. Also, the chaitya is supplemented by a tantric temple (fig. 8) and surrounded by four shrines (fig. 9) dedicated to the elements, namely, earth, wind, fire, and water, which are propitiated to gain protection and prosperity.

The Myth of Svayambhu’s Origins

The Svayambhu chaitya serves as the archetype of chaityas in the Newar tradition,7 which typically bear marks of the iconography of Svayambhu through the eyes and in other ways. Similarly, scroll paintings and other images generally render chaityas in the likeness of Svayambhu as a default. Besides alluding to the iconic eyes on the harmika, these show the chaitya as resting on a lotus blossom floating on a lake, which references the myth narrated in the Svayambhupurana, a work of seminal importance for the Newar Buddhist tradition.8 It relates that in prehistoric times the Kathmandu Valley was a sacred lake on which the primordial buddha principle (dharmadhatu) manifested (bhu) itself spontaneously (svayam) in the form of a light or a luminous crystal atop a thousand-petaled, jeweled lotus blossom. In order to make this sacred manifestation of Buddhahood accessible for worship, Manjushri (who had come for this purpose from “Maha China”) drained the lake, enabling the settlement of the Valley. This left the dharmadhatu exposed, and in order to protect it from spoliation at the onset of the period when people become wicked (kaliyuga), a physical structure, the chaitya, was built over the self-manifesting dharmadhatu. While the enshrined dharmadhatu of the mythological narrative might be identified with the rock encased by the dome, nothing in the Svayambhupurana suggests that the chaitya houses the physical relics (asthi-dhatu) of the (or a) Buddha or other Buddhist saint, as do stupas. Moreover, the historical records make no mention of any relics or relic chambers. Rather, they bear out that on the ritual plane, the principle of Buddhahood is made manifest by performing elaborate tantric rituals that imbue the chaitya—principally by configuring it as a mandala and infusing it with mantras (nyasa)—with the presence of the Five Buddhas of the Yogatantras.9 These deity-like buddhas are depicted in niches set in the dome, Akshobhya in the east, Ratnasambhava in the south, Amitabha in the west (fig. 10), and Amoghasiddhi in the north. In addition, the buddha at the center of this configuration, Vairochana, eventually came to be depicted in a niche of his own, installed just to the south of Akshobhya, which defies the logic of the mandala.10

The presence of these five buddhas turns the chaitya into a “buddha abode” (buddha-alaya); collectively, they embody the qualities of Buddhahood and render it present, just as the self-manifesting, luminous dharmadhatu of the Svayambhupurana does. In this, the Svayambhu chaitya represents not an exception but the rule. For, in tantric Buddhism (vajrayana), chaityas (and stupas) are imbued with the presence of Buddhahood mainly through the employment of elaborate rituals and not (or less so) through the enshrining of relics.

Periodic Renovations of the Svayambhu Chaitya

The dependence on rituals for the sanctification of chaityas calls for their (more or less regular) reenactment, since the charge they deliver is understood to wane over time—arguably, in contrast to the Buddha’s relics, which are commonly believed to be immune to decay, persisting unchanged until the end of the present age. In addition to daily worship (nitya puja) and annual anniversary rituals, such recharging may include the occasional physical renovation (jirnoddhara) of the chaitya, consisting in the extensive refurbishing or even rebuilding of much of the structure, accompanied by the appropriate rituals that culminate in the reconsecration of the chaitya at the end.

Over the course of the one to two millennia of its existence, the Svayambhu chaitya was rebuilt frequently, and at times in the process also modified and enlarged.11 Records beginning in the thirteenth century bear out that between then and the nineteenth century the chaitya was extensively renovated on average twice a century, at irregular intervals. In the course of these renovations, the entire structure of the chaitya above the dome was dismantled and discarded, the dome itself cut open in order to allow for the replacement of the yashti, and the chaitya, stripped down in this manner, was then rebuilt with new materials. Such complex and labor- and time-intensive operations included the procurement of the gigantic hardwood (sal) tree, some 82 feet (25 meters) tall, to serve as new yashti from the subtropical valley of the Trishuli Ganga River, or one of its tributaries, a few miles to the northeast of the Kathmandu Valley (where such trees do not grow). The enormous trees needed to furnish a new yashti were exceedingly rare already two hundred years ago, so that the renovations at the beginning of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries did not entail replacing the yashti installed in 1817.

Given the small scale of Kathmandu’s traditional economy, these costly renovations proved difficult to fund. As a result, Tibetan lamas, with varied backgrounds and different traditions, often played a dominant role as donors and even instigators of renovations, alongside the local Nepalese population, especially between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries and between the mid-eighteenth and twenty-first centuries, in the process often drawing on their extensive network of contacts, ranging from the western Tibetan regions all the way to Sikkim, Kham, and Bhutan. This transformed these renovations into Trans-Himalayan events that drew different Tibetan Buddhist traditions together and brought them into conversation with Newar Buddhism as well as the kings of Kathmandu, who, while Hindus themselves, bore the ultimate responsibility for Svayambhu, as for all other public religious sites on their territory.