The Kathmandu Valley, which was already called “Nepal” centuries before the emergence of the modern nation-state of that name, is a 220 square mile bowl, 4,000 feet up in the lap of the central Himalaya. Its history begins with a myth which tells of how the Bodhisattva (“Buddha-to-be”) Manjushri came down from the north and cleaved the valley rim to release the waters of an enormous lake, thus rendering the valley habitable for the propagation of the Buddhist faith.
The Licchavi kings of the 4th-9th centuries established the valley’s most ancient sacred sites, both Hindu and Buddhist, but it was the Malla kings of the 13th-18th centuries who created its extraordinary built environment. From the lush green rice fields that yielded two or even three crops a year on the fertile soils of the valley floor there arose not one but three tiny city states: Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, and Lalitpur (also called Patan). Each was centred upon a rambling palace complex with a temple-filled square, or Durbar square, adjacent to it, and each competed with the others for control of the lucrative trans-Himalayan trade.
The valley’s indigenous Newars developed their own distinctive style of traditional architecture, of which the multi-tiered “pagoda” temple is the most emblematic form. Their artisans’ fame spread far and wide – even to the court of Kubilai Khan in Beijing.
