Pharping and Dakshinkali: Caves, Monasteries and a Goddess in the Gorge

The road south from Kathmandu follows the Bagmati out through the Chobhar gorge and climbs into pine-covered hills. About nineteen kilometres from the city it reaches Pharping, a village crowded with Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, and a little further on it ends at Dakshinkali, one of Nepal's most important temples to the goddess Kali. The two places could hardly feel more different, and that contrast is the reason to combine them.

Pharping: in the footsteps of Guru Rinpoche

Pharping is sacred to Tibetan Buddhists because of its association with Padmasambhava, known as Guru Rinpoche, the master credited with establishing Buddhism in Tibet in the eighth century. Tradition says he meditated in two caves here on his way north.

Asura Cave is on the hillside above the village, reached by a stairway lined with prayer flags. It is a small rock chamber blackened by centuries of butter lamps. Beside the entrance, a handprint pressed into the stone is venerated as the Guru's own. Pilgrims touch it with their foreheads. Remove your shoes, enter quietly and give those praying room.

Yanglesho Cave lies at the bottom of the hill, next to the Shesh Narayan temple, where spring-fed pools sit under a cliff. This lower site is shared by Hindus and Buddhists and has a peaceful, shaded feel.

Between the two caves, the slopes are covered with monasteries and retreat centres belonging to different Tibetan Buddhist schools. Some have large gilded statues of Guru Rinpoche visible from far off. You are generally free to walk into monastery courtyards; enter prayer halls only if the doors are open and no private ritual is in progress.

Also in the village is a temple to Vajrayogini, a female deity honoured by both Buddhists and Hindus, in a traditional pagoda building up a short flight of steps.

Walking around Pharping

A loop linking the Vajrayogini temple, Asura Cave and the lower cave takes about ninety minutes on foot with stops. The lanes are steep but short. Tea shops and simple restaurants near the main junction serve noodle soup, momo and milk tea, and are popular with monks and nuns from the surrounding monasteries.

Dakshinkali: the southern Kali

Three kilometres beyond Pharping, the road ends at a car park. From there a path descends through a market of flower, coconut and offering sellers to a shrine at the meeting of two streams in a wooded ravine.

The image of Kali here is a black stone figure under a gilded canopy, open to the sky. Dakshinkali is known for animal sacrifice. On Tuesdays and Saturdays, and in great numbers during the Dashain festival, worshippers bring chickens and goats to be offered to the goddess. The animals are killed at the shrine by temple butchers and the meat is taken home or cooked at picnic spots nearby for a family feast.

Non-Hindus are not allowed into the inner enclosure but can watch from the surrounding walkways. You should decide in advance whether you want to see this. It is a sincere and long-established form of worship, not a show, and it is also bloody. If you would rather not, visit on another day of the week, when the shrine is quiet and the setting is simply a pretty gorge with a temple in it.

Photography of the sacrifice itself is discouraged. Take your cue from the people around you.

Putting the day together

A workable plan:

1. Leave Kathmandu by eight. If it is a Tuesday or Saturday and you want to see Dakshinkali at its busiest, go there first, as most offerings take place in the morning.

2. Drive back to Pharping. Walk the cave and monastery loop.

3. Have lunch in the village.

4. On the return, stop at Taudaha lake or the Chobhar gorge viewpoint.

You will be back in the city by mid-afternoon.

Getting there

Buses to Pharping and Dakshinkali leave from the Old Bus Park near Ratna Park in Kathmandu and take around ninety minutes. They are crowded on sacrifice days. A hired taxi for half a day costs more but gives you control over the stops. The road is winding, so anyone prone to motion sickness should sit in front.

Etiquette in brief

• Dress modestly at both sites.

• Walk clockwise around Buddhist shrines and stupas.

• Leather items should not be taken into Hindu temple enclosures.

• Ask before photographing monks, nuns, priests or worshippers.

• Leave a small donation at the caves.

Few short trips from the capital show so clearly how differently the sacred can be approached within a few kilometres: silent meditation caves on one hillside, and drums, bells and offerings in the ravine below.