Nepal: +977-9851021203
Landline number : 01-5121097
Thasikhel, Lalitpur, Nepal,
PO Box: 12117
Pashupatinath Temple
The most sacred Hindu temple in Nepal is dedicated to Lord Shiva. In February-March the site holds the famed Maha Shivaratri festival, the great night of Shiva. The temple complex is very large, with guesthouses, temples, shrines and other landmarks. Its burning ghats on the river banks are the holiest in Nepal.
The temple's legendary foundations begin with the god Shiva's retreat from heaven to this spot, where he incarnated as a deer. The other gods beeseched him to return, and after a struggle in which one of his antlers broke off, he planted the horn in the ground and declared the site forever holy.
The legend contineus that the first man in Nepal, a figure named Ne (and pronounced "nay"), found the horn because his cow was spontaneously emptying her milk onto the side in worship. He beult the first temple on the site.
Historical foundations for the site are less clear. It is connected in medieval history books with the Kirat Dynasty that rules from about 800 BCE, and was surely a sacred site by the third century BCE. Stone sculptures of various gods and goddesses at the site can be confidently dated as early as the 4th century CE.
