INDIA 2025 - DETOUR TO NEPAL: KATHMANDU DURBAR SQUARE

 November 24, 2025

The word Durbar comes from the Persian word for "court," and a "Durbar  Square" is an area in Nepal that includes a royal palace and the public areas around it. There are three main Durbar Squares in Nepal: Kathmandu, Patan, and Bhaktapur, all of which are UNESCO World Heritage sites. Each served as the royal seat of its own kingdom until Nepal was unified in the 18th century. 

We began at Kathmandu Durbar Square, the most important of the three Durbar Squares. Construction began in the 3rd century, but most of the major structures were built in later periods. There are dozens of temples in the complex, so it is a bit overwhelming.

My first impression was that wow, there are a LOT of pigeons. How do they keep the square clean?

The dogs don't appear to be chasing the birds away.

One of our first stops was Kumari Ghar, also known as the House of the Living Goddess, the official home of the Kumari (literally "virgin"), a prepubescent girl selected from a specific clan to be worshipped as the human manifestation of the goddess Durga. 

The Kumari's home was built 1757 by the king to make up for offending the current Kumari in some way. The building was renovated in 1966. The Kumari is carried to one of those upper windows from which she can look down on the crowd. Seeing the Kumari is supposed to bring good fortune. She is usually seen sometime between 9:00-11:00 a.m., so our guide had us in place early, hoping we might catch a glimpse of her. We did! She was carried out to one of those windows and we could see that she was dressed up like a doll and wearing heavy makeup. She held very still and looked down on the crowd for about 10 seconds before she was hauled away. Unfortunately, no photos are allowed

However, this photo of Trishna Shakya, the Royal Kumari from 2018-2025, is available on the internet. A Kumari is always dressed in red and gold and has the "fire eye" on her forehead as a symbol of her unique power of perception.

A new Kumari was selected in September 2025, and I believe she is the one we saw--a two-year-old girl whose feet will never touch the floor until she is no longer the Kumari and who will reign until she bleeds--either because of an injury or because of menstruation. Bizarre. When she appeared in the window, the audience paid reverent and rapt attention for the few seconds she was there.

The building on the left, the Maju Dega Temple, looks like it could be in Japan with its three-tiered pagoda style. the picture on the right shows the restoration that has been going on all over Kathmandu since the 7.8 earthquake that hit Nepal in 2015, killed 9,000 people, and destroyed many of the historic buildings. See photos of the destruction on this National Geographic webpage.

A little later in the day we saw what looked like a photo shoot featuring these beautiful young ladies in local dress. 

The Shiva Parvati Temple (below left) was built in the late 18th century by Bahadur Shah, the son of Nepal's first king. The beautiful elderly woman in the red dress was walking across the square. The Nepalese are distinctly different from their neighbors to the south. Their faces seem more Chinese than Indian.

This is not the same "pigeon runway" as the one in the video at the beginning of the post. This is the Pratap Malla Stambha Pillar, honoring a 17th century king. It is located in front of the Jagannath Temple, famed for its erotic carvings, which we totally missed.

We entered another palace complex, the Hanuman Dohka Palace. Parts of the complex date as far back as the midThere are multiple chowks, or courtyards, in this palace complex, the most important one being Nasal Chowk, named for a dancing Shiva statue in one corner. (Nasal means "dancing one" in Nepali.)

We passed through the door below to enter another chowk.

This is Lohan Chawk, which gets its name from the large piece of cut stone (lohan) in the center of the courtyard, anciently a place for rituals and religious worship.

The architectural details of the surrounding buildings are amazing.

Not everything in the Kathmandu Durbar Square is super old. Gaddi Baithak is a palace built in 1908 by the Indian Prime Minister of the time. Its neoclassical, very European style differs substantially from the other structures in the vicinity.

One of the stand-out features of the palace is this intricately carved door frame.

Zooming in on the details reveals the Indian influence that is less obvious in the wider view.

Well, time to move on to another Durbar Square, but I had to do a little shopping first. Bob had talked to this fellow about his Tibetan singing bowls--brass bowls that are struck or rubbed with a special mallet to produce haunting musical tones. Bob told him he would come back with his wife, and when we showed up, the man was surprised as apparently that is a common line tourists use to get away from the vendors.

I bought a couple of the 6" bowls for Christmas gifts for a granddaughter and my son's girlfriend.

We were slowed down a little on our way to the car by this procession that included the groom being shaded bo a red canopy, his family and friends, . . .

. . . and a band! Now that's the way to kick off a marriage! I wish we could have seen the bride as well. I think our guide told us that the groom was on his way to her house to pick her up.