Durbar Square & Full Moon Sacrifice

[New Kathamandu photos have been added to our Nepal Gallery]

With only a few days remaining in Kathmandu we are trying to see some of the sights around the city that we haven't seen yet. The Thamel area is very nice and perfectly geared towards the Western traveller and sometimes makes it difficult to reach out into the 'Real' Nepalese areas of the city. It's been great to recharge our batteries a bit, while also venturing around the city taking in the sights. We went for a long walk up to the Monkey temple which hangs over the city, usually visible even through the thick smog(pollution) and haze(natural). The Buddhist Monkey temple has a long, steep set of steps to get up to it which really had us questioning our fitness and ability to trek the Annapurna Circuit (we've become horribly unfit while living in the UK). The other bit of sightseeing around the city included a visit to Durbar Square, the oldest part of Kathmandu and home to the Living Goddess- The Kumari, who is a 9 year old girl (were very lucky to see her, as she only occasionally comes to the window).


Durbar square is a collection of old temples and buildings dating back to the 13 Century, in the heart of the city, we will upload a few photos into our Nepal collection. Anyhow, i won't go into any extensive boring details on the square (i am sure if you really want to geek out on the details of this area of Kathmandu just do a search online, it is pretty neat). We did however feel compelled to make a quick blog entry today, because during our visit we came across an unexpected Full Moon ceremony.

While leaving the square we noticed quite a bit of commotion around one of the Temples at the North end of the square. After working our way through the mess of 'spectators' we saw that there was some sort of ritual or ceremony taking place, which was rather shocking. This ritual initially involved blessing a live goat with flowers and water in front of two shrines to the Gods, just before the goat was sacrificed.

[WARNING: Some people may find the following description graphic and uncomfortable as it involves animals and sacrificial killings. Stop reading NOW if you think you will find this uncomfortable.]

Following the blessing, the goats throat was cut and the head removed. The blood that came from the body of the goat was sprayed onto the shrines of two Gods before the body (but not the head) was removed from from the front of the temple. This sacrificial offering continued with a baby cow and then a duck, the sacrifice of the cow was particularly upsetting for Steff.


The cow's legs were tied before it was pushed onto the ground and the cutting began. The process essentially involves the cutting of the throat and the pulling out of a large blood vessel from deep inside the neck which is severed. Blood then squirts under pressure in large quantities all over the two shrines. One of the men involved in this is violently pumping the stomach or chest of the cow to aid in the pumping out of the blood. The blood was everywhere and I got sprayed with it on my legs and feet. After this the head is then removed entirely and certain innards of the cow are cut out and placed onto the shrines of the Gods. The head is placed on the ground beside the head of the sacrificial goat. Particularly disturbing was that the body of the cow continued to twitch and move without the head.

Unfortunately, we do not have any religious background on what was going on and simply came upon this ceremony. Our experience of this is understandably more disturbing without the background understanding. What we do know is that this ritual happens every full moon.

Steff was quite shaken up after witnessing this, we both felt we had just seen something from a historical sacrifice from some 1000 years ago. It was strange to see this seemingly barbaric act taking place while people were chatting on their mobile phones and taking photographs (that would be me included there). Steff felt that if this sacrificing needs to be taking place for religious reasons, at least there should have been some prayers or peaceful respect and thought given to these animals afterwards. Life around us just seemed to continue as normal. So following this we left back for the hotel to decompress and talk about what had just experienced.

We have uploaded the photographs from this but have created a separate link so that people who might find the images uncomfortable do not have to look at them. They can be found HERE.

Last day in Kathmandu tomorrow.

Hope that this update finds everyone well and healthy... J+S