Kathmandu, Part II - Temples

With Christmas fast approaching, I thought I should catch up a little on the blog.  Since my last post on August 8th, our oldest son has gotten married.  We have hosted quite a few visitors here in India, been out to the villages a few times, taken a quick trip to Singapore and hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house for the expats that Mike works with. So a lot has been going on!

To finish up with my Kathmandu posts, here is Part II.

We visited many temples while we were in Kathmandu.  Some were Buddhist, but most were Hindu (80%) with a few Muslims (11%).  So, there are a lot of Hindu temples in Kathmandu.
Below are some pictures of the ones we saw.

Hindu Temple

Hindu Temple

Outside a Hindu temple

Hindu temple in Kathmandu

Hindu temple in the base of a tree

Someone dressed up as Lord Hanuman, also called the monkey god.  Hanuman is one of the most popular Hundu gods and he is worshiped as a symbol of strength and devotion.

The temples that I found the most interesting were the Buddhist ones. Nepal is the birthplace of Buddha, so there are many temples in Kathmandu.  There are two major Buddhist temples here: Boudhanath and Swayambhunath.

Boudhanath sits in the middle of Kathmandu.  Thousands of pilgrims gather daily to make the clockwise circumnavigation of the temple under the watchful eyes of Buddha while they pray or chant.  Their belief is that with each completion of the circuit, certain prayers are lifted up.

People walking clockwise around Boudhanath.

Prayer wheels, below, are also spun clockwise.  With each spin, the prayers that are printed on the wheels are lifted up as if a person is actually saying the prayers.  We saw the same people go by the wheels many times.

Prayer wheels at Swayambhunath

 

 

Large prayer wheel inside the monastery at Boudhanath.

Buddhist monks-in-training

Buddhist monk

Swayambhunath temple, also known as the monkey temple because of the monkeys that live around it.