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Approaches to Heritage Restoration in Post-Earthquake Kathmandu

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Approaches to Heritage Restoration in Post-Earthquake Kathmandu Material Religion The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief ISSN: 1743-2200 (Print) 1751-8342 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rfmr20 “Religious” Approaches to Heritage Restoration in Post-Earthquake Kathmandu Manik Bajracharya & Axel Michaels To cite this article: Manik Bajracharya & Axel Michaels (2017) “Religious” Approaches to Heritage Restoration in Post-Earthquake Kathmandu, Material Religion, 13:3, 379-381, DOI: 10.1080/17432200.2017.1335085 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17432200.2017.1335085 Published online: 28 Jul 2017. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 5 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rfmr20 Download by: [Universitaetsbibliothek Heidelberg] Date: 14 August 2017, At: 07:25 “religious” approaches restoration and preservation is based on various criteria that evolve around originally western but to heritage restoration in nowadays almost ubiquitous notions of “authen- post-earthquake kathmandu ticity” and “originality.” The aim of some conser- vationists and the Department of Archaeology manik bajracharya and axel michaels is to rebuild the monuments in their “original” or traditional form (Tiwari 2016). university of heidelberg, germany As a consequence, discussions among arche- In the aftermath of the 2015 earthquakes of Nepal ologists, conservationists, architects, and culture we noticed two key attitudes towards preserving experts started on the question what “original” and restoration of monuments of cultural heritage material and forms actually mean. In March 2016, among archeologists, architects, conservationists the Government of Nepal decided, that “Tradi- and cultural experts concerned with or interested tional construction materials should be used, and in rebuilding and reconstruction of Nepal’s heritage traditional construction technology and norms buildings (Weiler and Gutschow 2016). One has adopted, for the restoration and rebuilding of all to do with authenticity, the other with agency. We types of monuments” (Government of Nepal 2016, argue that both approaches have quasi-religious or 6). In practice, this meant that, wherever possible, even ideological implications in that they insist on all traditional buildings should be rebuilt in their the enforcement of a particular view or practice. “authentic” form using original material only, i.e. The focus of attention in the form of inter- bricks, wood, stones, and roof tiles. Proposals national as well as state- and NGO-based dona- by organizations such as the Kathmandu Valley tions and activities has so far been on such large Preservation Trust (see also Weiler, in this issue) monuments as have been declared UNESCO world regarding rebuilding of the famous Char Narayan cultural heritage sites since 1962: temples and Temple at Patan Darbar Square (Figures 1 and 3) palaces of the three cities of the Kathmandu Valley: to stabilize it with concrete and iron fortifications, Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur. In 2015 some thus ensuring that the monument would not col- of these remarkable monuments from the Malla lapse so easily again in case of another earthquake, in Post-Earthquake Restaouration Heritage to Approaches “Religious” Kathmandu Michaels Manik Bajracharya and Axel period (ca. fourteenth century to late eighteenth) were rejected—or led to massive delays by the had collapsed within minutes. According to a Department of Archaeology. Such politics implied damage assessment report by the Department of acts and regulations that, in the end, separated the Archaeology, more than a thousand monuments people from the once living places, and increas- were damaged, 140 were completely destroyed. ingly transformed the royal (Darbar) squares of The immediate reaction of international donor Kathmandu Valley into a kind of outdoor museum. organizations, NGOs, most media and other agen- However, simultaneously thousands of smaller, cies or institutions and politicians was to rebuild less monumental shrines and temples had also or restore these impressive buildings that have been destroyed or damaged. Yet these buildings attracted the attention of so many international did not attract the attention of the general and visitors and have become the source of a growing international public even though they are often 13 Volume 3 Issue heritage tourism business. This ongoing process of much more central for worship and more fre- quented than the monuments. This could be a neighborhood’s shrine of Ganesha, a small temple Manik Bajracharya is a Research Fellow at the South Asia Institute, Department of Cultural and Religious History of of a local goddess, or a simple rest-house (pati) South Asia and Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, Heidelberg where members of a local community gather to University, Germany. His research interests are: Newar Buddhist chat or chant devotional songs in the mornings or Downloaded by [Universitaetsbibliothek Heidelberg] at 07:25 14 August 2017 studies, Nepalese chronicles, history of the 18th–19th century evenings. The renovation and preserving of places 379 South Asia. such as the Chandeshvari Temple in Patan (see [email protected] Figure 2) happened with no support from the Gov- Axel Michaels is a Senior Professor at the Cluster of Excellence ernment of Nepal (e.g. the National Reconstruction Asia and Europe in a Global Context, Heidelberg University, Authority) or foreign donations. Instead, money and Vice President of the Academy of Sciences, Heidelberg, came from the municipality or local businessmen, Germany. His research interests are: colonial and legal history for instance. The local people displayed a list of res- of India and Nepal, ritual studies. idents who have provided material and monetary [email protected] support for the renovation work. Not everyone regrets the lack of official support. In personal Material Religion volume 13, issue 3, pp. 379–381 conversation, one local even argued that: “This is DOI: 10.1080/17432200.2017.1335085 a ‘Department-of Archaeology free zone,’” which means that the community would not like to see Material Religion Material In Conversation © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group “outsiders” imposing their rules and regulations “authenticity” did not matter as a value when it came to appropriate reconstruction. Aesthetic criteria differed considerably, and this also counts for many instances today, where a temple may well be rebuilt from new or foreign materials such as concrete, iron or simply bathroom tiles. Most important was that the local population could again worship the deity. If one compares both attitudes, it becomes evident that a kind of elitist, or “five-star approach” for the famous UNESCO monuments, which sidelines attention on intangible heritage, comes FIG 1 to a cultural environment made up of different State of Char Narayan Temple after the devastating earthquake of 2015. elements. Here, it turns into a quasi- “religion” made March 2017. Photograph by Manik Bajracharya. up of a “modernization package” that encompasses notions of authenticity, originality, aesthetic value, capital value with canonizing restrictive rules and regulations, i.e. authorizing procedures. These clas- sified monuments embody power, grandness, rich- ness, and they come along with both an aesthetics of persuasion and a culture of disenchantment. As a consequence the encounter with these monuments is almost exclusively confined to looking, executed by taste and appreciation, whereas in the local context intangible forms of heritage matter, and are triggered through acts or rituals of worshipping, singing, reciting, or feasting. Thus, in a Hindu-Buddhist milieu, as is the case in Newar Kathmandu, authenticity is not FIG 2 a value per se. It presupposes originality and Renovation work in progress of Chandeshvari Temple, Pimbahal, Patan. singularity, both rather secondary notions in March 2017. Photograph by Manik Bajracharya. a circular and repetitive worldview, in which the catastrophe is beyond human agency. In such a worldview, the deities’ agency matters most. Gods, we have often heard, do not care for cultural heritage. They privilege rituals and people’s wellbeing. For the five-star approach of reconstruction, as in the context of the post-earthquake situation, the past matters for the (often secular and consumption-based) present and lifestyle. From a local perspective it is the direct presence of the gods, for which “the past” is rather subordinate. The past itself has no or little value, and in its circular character, time Downloaded by [Universitaetsbibliothek Heidelberg] at 07:25 14 August 2017 has different meaning. It is because of this, and 380 from this perspective, that temples must not be preserved in their “original” form. Time and again, FIG 3 all have been changed, renovated, beautified Char Narayan Temple before the earthquake (2015). Photograph by Rohit and “modernized.” This point is often ignored in Ranjitkar. post-earthquake discussions. But we must also recognize that in a global and on the local efforts to reconstruct a sacred site transcultural world, and this certainly also applies in their neighborhood. They prioritized shelter to Nepal, different views are entangled. So both for the gods because, as the argument went, the seem possible and necessary: the vital support deities themselves demanded such a roofed place for the monumental
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