KATHMANDU, NEPAL, January 2, 2009: For the first time in the history of Nepal’s revered Pashupatinath temple, devotees were unable to offer worship to the centuries-old deity after a row erupted between the trust that looks after the shrine and the priests, a bad omen according to the locals.
The dispute that began last month with the Pashupatinath Area Development Trust appointing two Nepali priests to take over. Traditionally, the priests in this temple had been Indian, because the Nepalese are not supposed to work on certain special days, as during the mourning of a king’s death.
Two days ago, the Supreme Court stepped in. It ordered the hold of the new appointments after a petition claimed that the trust had overridden all procedures to make political appointments. The Rajbhandaris, who are helpers to the main priests, locked the gate of the main shrine to stop the two new Nepali priests from taking over on Thursday, when the government tried to break in, creating a tumult.
But on January 2, the Maoist government has deployed riot police at Nepal’s holiest temple Pashupatinath to stop protesters, defying the Supreme Court order. More than a hundred Maoists broke the lock of Pashupatinath’s main shrine and took the newly appointed priest Bishnu Prasad Dahal inside to capture the head-priest’s seat. Popular protests erupted in the vicinity of the temple.
The move to replace the Indian priests has been sharply rejected not only by the Supreme Court, but by the opposition group Nepali Congress.