Pashupatinath Temple

The significance of Pashupatinath Temple begins not with stone or mortar but with a story about a god who wanted to disappear. It is told that Lord Shiva, weary of the celestial courts of Kailash, descended to the forested banks of the Bagmati River in the form of a deer. He wandered the hills of Mrigasthali, grazing in solitude, unrecognized. When the other gods finally tracked him down and seized him by the horn, it shattered into four pieces. One fragment became the sacred lingam now worshipped in the inner sanctum of Pashupatinath, its four faces gazing outward toward the four cardinal directions. That single act of divine escape, and the violence of recapture, gave this site its oldest and most defining legend. And the lingam has remained here, through earthquakes, invasions, and a thousand monsoon seasons, on the eastern bank of the Bagmati in the Deopatan neighborhood of Kathmandu, Nepal.