Boudhanath Stupa

Boudhanath Stupa dominates the Kathmandu skyline from every approach, its massive white hemisphere rising behind a cluster of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and guest houses on the eastern edge of the valley. The stupa is one of the largest Buddhist shrines in the world, its white dome surmounted by a painted Buddha whose four pairs of eyes — two on each of the cardinal faces of the upper harmika cube — seem to follow every visitor who walks the kora path around its base. The 108 prayer wheels set into the lower drum of the stupa spin continuously in the hands of pilgrims performing their circumambulation, and the sound of the spinning metal and the chanting that accompanies the kora fills the square from early morning to late evening.

The clockwise circumambulation path, or kora, is the central act of devotion at Boudhanath, and the crowd is mixed: monks in maroon robes, nuns with shaved heads, elderly Tibetan refugees turning their beads and spinning the prayer wheels as they walk, and tourists navigating the same path in the opposite direction without always understanding that the clockwise direction is the one that matters. At the four points of the cardinal directions the kora passes through ornate Tibetan-style gate arches, each painted with protective deities, and the whole circuit takes about forty-five minutes at a brisk walking pace. The monasteries that line the outer edge of the kora range from active scholarly institutions with hundreds of resident monks to smaller hermitages where individual lamas receive visitors for teaching.

The 108 butter lamps in the underground shrine below the stupa are kept continuously lit by devotees who pay a small fee to light a lamp and make an offering, and the underground chamber they illuminate is one of the most photogenic spaces in the Kathmandu Valley, the small flames reflected in brass bowls and surrounded by offering bowls of rice and flowers. The butter lamp tradition is shared with Tibetan Buddhist practice across the Himalaya and is considered an offering to the Buddha that also illuminates the mind of the giver, and the Boudhanath lamps draw visitors from across the Buddhist world who come specifically to make this offering.

The Boudhanath neighbourhood has been transformed over the past two decades from a quiet pilgrims' site into a bustling commercial district where monks share the footpaths with kebab sellers,tuk-tuks and trekking gear shops. The monasteries themselves remain largely unchanged, their incense and chanting spilling onto the street, but the wider neighbourhood now also offers some of the best Tibetan cuisine in the Kathmandu Valley and has become a centre for Tibetan craft shops and antique dealers. The stupa at the centre of all of this retains its gravitational pull: everything in the neighbourhood orients toward it, and from the roof of any of the surrounding monasteries the full sweep of the dome, the harmika and the pinnacle is revealed against the mountains to the north.

Boudhanath is one of the largest Buddhist shrines in the world and the spiritual heart of Tibetan Buddhism in Nepal.

The continuously lit 108 butter lamps in the underground shrine are a uniquely atmospheric devotional practice.

The kora circumambulation path offers a complete immersion in Tibetan Buddhist practice.