Newar Pagoda Roof

The Newar pagoda roof is the stacked, multi-roofed form of the temples built by the Newar people of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal. A brick shrine is topped by a series of diminishing roofs, each a pyramid of timber covered with small terracotta tiles and carried on a ring of carved wooden struts. These roofs dominate the Durbar Squares of Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur, which with four other monument zones form the Kathmandu Valley World Heritage Site, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Structure

The temples are built of fired brick laid in mud mortar, with timber for the floors, the roof frames and the decorated windows and doors. Each roof projects well beyond the wall below it and is propped by inclined wooden struts set between the wall and the eaves. The struts are richly carved with deities, mythical animals and other figures, and they are among the most celebrated woodwork in South Asia. The roof tiers step in as they rise, so each wall storey is shaded and sheltered from monsoon rain by the roof above it.

Tiles and metal

The roofs are covered with small, overlapping terracotta tiles, known in the valley as jhingati. The most important temples have roof ornaments, finials and sometimes entire roofs of gilded brass or copper. Records of the building of the Nyatapola Temple note that its lowest roof had been tiled with jhingati by May 1702.

History

According to UNESCO, the blending of Buddhist and Hindu art in the valley goes back at least to the 5th century CE, and the greatest period of building was roughly 1500 to 1800, under the Malla kings. The roots of the Newar style are traced to the Licchavi period (about 400-750 CE). Nepalese craftsmen, among them Arniko, carried the style abroad, and some writers suggest that the multiple-roofed pagoda may have originated in the valley and spread from there to India, China, Indochina and Japan, a claim that remains speculative.

Notable examples

• Nyatapola Temple, Bhaktapur: built between December 1701 and July 1702 for King Bhupatindra Malla, with five roofs. It is one of only two five-roofed temples in the valley and is around 30 m (about 100 ft) high, with figures varying between sources. It survived both the 1934 Nepal-Bihar earthquake and the 2015 Gorkha earthquake.
• Changu Narayan: a pagoda temple on one of the oldest religious sites in the valley, with an inscription of the 5th century CE.
• The temples of Hanuman Dhoka (Kathmandu), Patan and Bhaktapur Durbar Squares.

Earthquakes

The Kathmandu Valley is highly seismic. The 2015 Gorkha earthquake damaged or brought down many historic temples, and restoration has been carried out by local communities with international support including UNESCO.