Nawadurga - In the city of devotees Bhaktapur.

This was years ago, A weary traveller, not from around these parts, sought shelter. It was getting dark, and he needed a place to spend the night,” says Tej Kumari Chitrakar. “I thought it would do no harm to let him sleep in our corridor. He was a Pardesi, after all...I couldn’t think of anything bad that could come from giving him one night’s shelter here.”

Tej Kumari has an animated sort of expression on her face. You sense that she really wants to tell this story. What she is about to confide in you amazes her, and she wishes for you to share in that wonder. “It was late at night when I heard frantic knocks and opened the door to find the Pardesi on the landing.‘The Devatas will not let me sleep,’ he told me. ‘They have hit and prodded me all these hours, and will not let me rest’.”You find yourself in an old settlement in Bhaktapur, in ahome that’s not quite like all the others. It is the holy house of Ya-che Tole where Tej Kumari’s husband, Purna, moulds, paints and brings to life the 13 sanctified masks of the Nava Durga Naach each year.Purna Chitrakar has been involved in the making of these masks for the past 50 years. As a young boy, in the 1960s, he was apprenticed to his Kaka then the artisan mask-maker of Ya-che Tole to train under him. As a member of the extended Chitrakar family to whom the Guthi is believed to have consigned the special privilege of making the Nava Durga masks centuries ago for it is not certain when the Nava Durga Naach tradition actually began although it is believed that King Subarma Malla systematised the dance, as it exists in its present form, in the 15th century Purna devoted his youth to mastering the intricacies of his craft.

“Every year, on Gathe Mangal,the day when all homes are rid of the evil spirits dwelling in them the Gathas, who are the Nava Durga dancers, would bring bocha maato, lightweight, good quality clay, to the holy house,” he remembers. The Gathas gardeners by occupation, a separate caste whose role in the traditional Newari occupational hierarchy was to grow flowers for worship belonged, like Purna and his Kaka, to an extended family granted the special privilege of being directly associated with the Nava Durga Naach.“The clay would be dried in the sun and beaten to dust,” he continues. “This would then be mixed with sticky wheat-paste, and cotton and Nepali paper would gradually be beaten into the mixture.” Purna is describing the very method he still uses today to make his masks. “When the right consistency is reached and time comes for the clay to be placed on the thasa (mould), you pound it again with the mallet and roll it down to its desired thickness,” he explains. Only then does he place the readied clay on the thasa and begin building up the mask’s features.The mask is left to dry and harden for the next five-six days, after which the edges are properly finished. Painting can begin once layers of jute, fine cotton and Nepali paper have been applied on the mask, and its facade painted over with kamero maato (white mica clay). Every year, Purna spends the months leading up to Dashain invested in this task. Each intricately rendered detail and selectively hued mark is imbued in symbolic meaning and representative of the centuries Purna and the mask-makers who came before him have spent working them over and over again. For these mask-makers, their work has always been more than artistry and craftsmanship. Purna, like the others who came before him, is believed to be an initiate, an artisan to whom the esoteric world of old enchantments the mantras and tantric knowledge integral to the making of the Nava Durga masks is very real and accessible. And the actual process of making these masks is very possibly a ritual only ever witnessed by their makers; no others are allowed to watch.The likenesses themselves are expected to have looked exactly the same when they were first made almost half-a-millennium ago. And though Purna has never digressed, he seems beset by another change, one where real world economics have come to play a key role. “Each year, I have to find a way of collecting more than half the amount it takes to buy raw material for the masks,” he says, and the total adds up to Rs 200,000. “I make rounds of neighbouring Guthis, municipalities and VDCs because the money I receive from the local Guthi and ministry simply do not cover the expense. It is a tiring, degrading process, and I have little idea who will take over these responsibilities once my time is up.”And although there is something of a smile on his face as he wonders who the next Nava Durga mask-maker might be for neither his eldest son, who, if tradition were to be strictly followed, would take up the duty as his fated calling, nor his two younger ones, are interested in doing so Purna seems disillusioned by the present. Bhaktapur and its people, to whom the mystical lore of the Nava Durga once meant the difference between a good harvest and a bad one, are no longer as reliant on its soil and its gods for good fortune.As you listen, you notice a black curtain towards the end of Purna and Tej Kumari’s room. It is in the secret workshop that lies just beyond it that the mask-maker works.

Nawadurga Temple

Each year, right after the master finishes his 13 deified masks, the Gatha dancers ‘steal’ them away. From then on, for an entire nine-and-a-half-month period which begins on Bijaya Dashami and ends on Bhagasti, Mahakali, Kumari, Barahi, Bramhayani, Maheshwori, Vaishnavi and Indrayani, accompanied by Shiva, Bhairav, Seto Bahirav and Ganesh, and the fierce animal guardians Sima and Duma, walk through the cobbled lanes of Bhaktapur, physically manifest in the dancers who wear their sacred masks.The feared, revered gods are still very much alive in this ancient city of devotees.

About Nawadurga

Nawadurga dancing at Dattatraye Temple

Bhaktapur, the city of devotees, is famous for its templearchitecture and its magnificentrepresentation of gods and goddesses created by anonymous Newar craft-masters duringthe reign of the Mallas. Among the various gods and goddesses of Bhaktapur, Nava Durga, the mask-deities is mobile, dramatic and mysterious. As a matter of fact Bhaktapur is renowned for Nava Durga.Nava Durga means nine Durgas composed of Mahakali,Kumari,Barahi,Brahmayani, Mahesvari, Viasnavi, Indrani, Mahalaksmi and Tripurasundari. Durgas are the various demonic representation or manifestation of Parvati, the Sakti of Shiva, in tantric tradition. In Bhaktapur Nava Durga is a set of masks with a ritual continual life force which begins from Dashain in October and ends in Bhagasti in June. Since the day of Bhagasti all the deities in Nepal live not in the land but beneath the water until Gathamuga Chare, a little less than five weeks later. On the day of Gathamuga the gathas take some black clay from the field and erect a linga of Shiva. Some of this soil is left and preserved in order to be added to new masks. The gathas,i.e.; mask-dancers, musicians and leader of the god-house go to Taleju with the new set of masks ritually made of specially clay mixed with the ashes of the previous masks and of the black clay, the remains of the Shiva linga made on the day of Gathamuga Chare. It is at the night of Dashain when the Karmacharya gives life-force, to the masks with the mantra.Therefore, these masks have tantric significance. Since the time the masks have life force, they are considered gods and goddesses. The role of Taleju is great, though she is not presented within the Nava Durga Pantheon. The new set of masks is exhibited in the celebratory Brahmayani Pitha beside the Hanumante River. This happens on the day of the Vijaya Dashami. Brahmayani Pitha which is in the eastern side of the city is also the Pitha of Nava Durga; Brahmayani is/was the guardian deity of the people and the king of Bhaktapur.Though there are nine Durgas, only seven, Mahakali, Kumari,Barahi, Brahmayani, Mahesvari, Indrani and Vaisnavi are represented in the mask-dance and her icon is kept in Nava Durga god-house at Gachhe tole. Mahalaksmi, i.e. Shifo-dyo also is not present there in the form of mask. She is always in a small chariot that is kept on the ground during the public performances of Nava Durga. She is more abstract, important and powerful. She is regarded to be the Nava Durga's own goddess. A vessel with Maha Lakshmi icon contains ambrosia and other tantric things. It is enshrined in the god-house. The 'six-armed image framed by lions at her feet and a large aureole of flames has no face. The face, if it was ever represented, has been carefully cut out from the surface plane'. So she is concerned with cemetery as well. She is of tantric concern. She leads the procession of masked Nava Durga. Apart from seven Durgas in Nava Durga dance, there are other six masks. They are of Shiva, Ganesh, Bhairava, Sveta Bhairava, Sima and Duma. Sima and Duma portrayed roaring, an expression of their fierceness, are the messengers of death. Also they are the bodyguards of Shiva. They rarely dance in the group-dance. Theirs is a police function. Children taunt them. If a child is caught by either of them, it is considered an evil omen. Therefore, some parents often pay them beforehand that their children may not be caught. This belief reflects their role as messengers of death. Shiva's mask is smaller and it is not worn. Ganesh carries it in the group-dance. He fishes in the public performances.

The Nava Durga dance proceeds according to the beatings of Dyokhin and the performances of Taa (a pair of thick, small cyambals) and Kanhe-baja. The dyokhin, taa and kanhe-baja have symbolic meaning. It is said that the ringing sound of

the musical instruments of Nava Durga dance not only gives the rhythmic signals to the dancers but also removes the people's troubles and obstacles caused by the evil beings. The tantric version is that it gives peace, prosperity and happiness to the people. For this purpose, this dance is performed in every tole of Bhaktapur. It is also taken to Deupatan, Sankharapur, Banepa, Nala, Dhulikhel, Panauti, Srikhandapur and Chaukot every year and in Hadigaun every twelve years. The people of these places devotedly offer puzas to the deities. "King Suvarna Malla of Bhaktapur introduced the dance of the Nava Durga, having heard that they had been seen dancing at night".

For video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMKcCbBICos