Hinduism, Buddhism, Newari, Nepali

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Sanjaya is a Newari of the priest caste so he is able to go into all the temples. While in Bhaktapur, he showed me a Buddhist “monastery” or bihara (vihara). I didn’t see any Buddha statues or images in the vihara, and Sanjaya said that’s because Buddhism in Nepal and Tibet is Vajrayana (Tantric). I’m not sure what he meant by that. Monks in Buddhist monasteries can marry. Hindu priests as well and they can live either in the temple/monastery or outside the temple. In the Buddhist vihara, we saw a family. I thought to myself: I don’t understand, they have sex in the monastery?? I guess it’s me who has the erroneous notion that sex automatically desecrates a place. But then, if the most holy thing in the temple is a lingam, then sex probably adds to the holiness??

It seems that in Nepal, Buddhism has existed alongside Hinduism for so long that Buddhist and Hindu temples are shared places of worship for peoples of both faith so that the distinction between Hinduism and Buddhism in Nepal is not always clear. This is not a surprise since Hinduism itself is such a mixed bag. Bhaktapur is a Newari town as everybody I met were Newaris. Dipesh told me that about 200 years ago, Nepali (an Indo-European language), became the national language because there were more Nepali speakers than Newari. Also, Newaris speak Nepali as well but Nepalis don’t speak Newari. There are 4 castes among the Nepali people (like Hindus in India) and there are 4 castes among the Newari people but Newari castes do not have the same status as Nepali castes. For example, both Nepalis and Newari Hindus can worship at the same temple but each group has its own traditions and practices of worship. For all their rituals, Nepalis would require a Nepali priest and nothing else whereas Newaris would require a Nepali priest for certain poojas and a Newari priest for other poojas. The worship of the living goddess (Kumari) is mainly a Newari practice and the weird part about it is that there are a few Buddhist castes among the Newari people and the Kumari must be from a Newari Buddhist caste (Shakya), even though Kumari is a Hindu belief. There are many races in Nepal, and within each race, different religions are practiced and each religion has its own caste system, so things can get quite confusing. Again, I guess it’s my fault for trying to draw distinct lines between things. I saw a temple with prayer wheels and Buddhist images mixed with Hindu gods on the outside such as Ganesha and Vishnu (I think, it had many arms). The prayer wheels had what I thought was Tibetan script on them. Dipesh told me that it was actually Newari script which is the same script used by Tibetans even though the languages are very different. The temple was a Newari Buddhist monastery. There are also Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in Nepal (such as the Boudha in Kathmandu) and they are very different from Newari Buddhist monasteries. Newari Buddhist monks get married and eat meat while Tibetan monks are celibate and vegetarians.

Newaris are indigenous to the Kathmandu valley and practice both Hinduism and Buddhism. Sanjaya’s friend (who looked Chinese) is a Magar and he said that means he is “Mongolian”. He also said that Magars practice ancestor worship but in Nepal, they are classified as Buddhists. I looked it up and found that Magars are indigenous to the area and their language is in the Tibetan-Burman group just like Newari. Their religion was originally shamanism and Tengriism (including ancestor worship) but nowadays, most Magars are Hindus (75%) while the rest are Buddhists (25%). However, Magars are distinctly mongoloid/asian looking. Sanjaya looked completely Indian to me (not asian), but when I visited his family, his parents looked like a mix of Chinese and Indian while one sister looked totally asian and another looked totally not. I guess, they’re just totally mixed. In fact, everything about Nepal looked mixed to me. In front of Chinese temples and buildings, there is always a pair of guardian statues one on either side of the entrance and they are usually a lion and a lioness in stylized form. When I saw the statues in front of temples in Bhaktapur, I realized where those Chinese statues came from. The ones in Nepal looked like stylized statues in a transitional stage from India to China. From that, I realized and noticed how everything in Nepal was a mix of Indian and Chinese. All the Indian religious art and architecture had filtered through Nepal and Tibet to China. All the food I had in Nepal were a mix of Indian and Chinese, e.g., momos and curry dishes. Newari does not sound at all like Nepali, it sounded like a Chinese dialect to me. The wedding clothes worn by girls and women are red with gold bits (a Chinese tradition) but in the form of a sari. Make-up and accessories also looked mixed. In general, the brides looked like they were wearing a mix of Chinese and Indian traditional costumes which is so cool!

Sanjaya told me that Newari girls get married 3 times in life. First at the age of 7 or 8, she marries the sun god, then when she gets her period, she marries Vishnu which involves carrying a doll (or fruit in other parts of Nepal), and then when she is older, she marries a man. Each time, she gets fully decked out, just like a real wedding. He showed me pictures of his sisters’ “weddings”.

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