Celebrating the ‘Great Night of Shiva’ in Kathmandu

It was the night before a new moon, and a rotating palette of color, reflecting off the buildings, floated like a halo in the mist. Silhouettes of cows dotted my periphery, accompanied by the gentle rustle of their grazing on the riverbank.

As I approached the center of the complex, the crowds pressed closer together, filling every inch of the paths and ghats, a term for stairways in the Indian subcontinent, lining the sacred Bagmati River. Those who weren’t huddled under umbrellas or shielded by plastic bags seemed content enough to stick it out in the rain.

I had visited this Hindu temple before — Pashupatinath, on the outskirts of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal — but only in the broad daylight, and never among so many people.

The scents of burning wood, marijuana and incense filled the air — as did the spiced smoke of corpses being cremated on the far side of the river. Rhythmic claps and chimes bounced around the temple walls, in tandem with the evening prayer playing over the loudspeaker.

I was experiencing the sensory abundance of Maha Shivaratri, the Great Night of Shiva.

Every year, thousands of celebrants gather at Pashupatinath in honor of Shiva, one of Hinduism’s three most revered gods. The festival commemorates the wedding night of Shiva and Parvati, a Hindu goddess. According to the Linga Purana, a sacred Hindu text, it also marks the day that Shiva took the form of the lingam, an object — often viewed in the West as a phallic symbol — that is typically found in temples and that represents the god’s infinite existence.