Sweating Deity Worries Nepalese

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1. "Sweating" Deity Worries Nepalese

Reuters

 

KATHMANDU, NEPAL, June 23, 2004: Now a "sweating" icon of Bhima, the

second Pandava, is troubling Nepal amid a bloody revolution launched in

the name of the great Communist icon, Mao Zedong. The stone image began

dropping " beads of sweat" on Tuesday at the renowned Bhimeshwar temple

in the eastern town of Dolakha that earlier served as a trade route to

Tibet. Temple authorities alerted devotees by ringing bells. Special

prayers are being conducted around the country to placate the sweating

of stone icon.

 

"As per tradition, the royal palace performs a special puja whenever

the icon sweats," a Nepalese official said. The temple normally sends

the "sweat" soaked in cotton to the palace for worship. Disaster, most

Nepalese believe, has befallen their country every time the image sheds

"sweat." And the catalogue of such calamities is quite long, the most

recent one being the 2001 massacre of King Birendra and his family.

 

In the past, the "sweating" had preceded the 1934 earthquake that

killed thousands in Kathmandu, the 1940 hanging of Nepal's first four

democracy fighters by the Ranas, the 1950 anti-Rana revolution, the

passing away of King Tribhuvan and King Mahendra (grandfather and

father of the present monarch) in 1953 and 1972 and the 1988 earthquake

that caused destruction in many parts of the kingdom. This time the

icon "sweated" mostly from the left that the Nepalese believe portends

ill for the people. Sweating from the right is considered bad for the

royal family. In 1986, King Birendra visited the temple after news of

sweating by the icon reached him.

 

Incidentally, the sweating incident coincided with the conclusion of

the two-month festival of Machhendranath whose chariot had collapsed in

Kathmandu about a month ago, an incident the Nepalese regard as a bad

omen. According to legend, Machhendranath was the teacher of Gorakhnath

who had blessed King Prithvi Narayan before he founded the present

ruling dynasty.