Boudhanath: The Great Stupa

The Boudhanath Stupa has long been a crown jewel of Kathmandu’s historic architecture. A Buddhist monument symbolic of the stages to enlightenment, hundreds of monks circumnavigate the stupa everyday.

In 1949, during his visit to the Kathmandu Valley — among the first Europeans to enter the kingdom since the Ranas sealed Nepal off from the outside world more than a century earlier — the English mountaineer Bill Tilman wrote:

Although it stands upon no eminence Bodnath is one of the most conspicuous objects of the valley. Surrounded by the houses and maize fields of Bodnath, there rises from a square plinth a huge white ‘stupa’, in shape like an umbrella; on top is a lofty spire with a square base on each face of which is painted in crimson and black a pair of eyes, and between them a nose indicated by a ‘?’. In the vicinity of Bodnath, or indeed from much farther away, there is no escape from the impressive, questioning gaze of those strange eyes. I suppose even a Buddhist who lived always in their sight might become indifferent to their mild reproach; a supposition which only an enquiry into the morals of the people of Bodnath might decide. To a stranger they were powerful monitors, bearing an injunction more poignant than the memento mori of a grinning skull.

“The base of the stupa is ringed with prayer wheels and a stone-flagged ambulatory round which the pilgrim walks, turning…