Nasa Dya: (Nrtya^[*] Natha)

Throughout Bhaktapur are a large number of shrines associated with a divinity locally called Nasa God, Nasa Dya:. Niels Gutschow mapped twenty-one of these shrines in a 1975/76 survey (personal communication). Of these, one in the southwestern part of the main festival route is considered the main one, and is a center for sacrifice and worship to him. Nasa Dya: gives skill and effectiveness to public performers; thus people who are to take part in dance or drama or musical performances pray and offer flesh and alcoholic offerings to Nasa Dya: before the

performance. Similarly people who are learning one of the performing arts, including those whose traditional thar profession is music of one kind or another, worship Nasa Dya: in the course of their training. Jugis, for example, on the completion of their formal study of their special musical instrument, a double-reed woodwind, make a flesh and alcohol sacrifice to Nasa Dya:" Nasa " means grace and skill in social as well as "artistic" performances. Someone who has nasa is "cultivated, delightful in social intercourse, . . . entertaining, the life of the party" (Manandhar 1976, 253). Thus people also worship Nasa Dya: for such social skill. Nasa Dya: is represented by holes in the wall of a shrine (or often in private homes). These may be single or in sets of three, and of various shapes, sometimes as triangles with the apices pointing downward. Brahmans identify Nasa Dya: with the South Asian Siva in his aspect as Nrtya^[*] Natha Raja, the "Lord of the Dance," but there are probably no shrine images of him in this form in Bhaktapur. Mary Slusser had identified one such image, of "exceptional interest" precisely because of its unusualness, in the Pasupatinatha shrine complex (1982, vol. 1, p. 233, n.76; vol. 2, pl. 356). She notes that most Nasa Dya:s "are inconsequential images . . . or they decorate the toranas^[*] [decorated arches placed above major shrine icons] of Siva temples" (1982, vol. 1, p. 233, n.76). Like Bhisi(n) Dya:'s relation to Bhima, Nasa Dya:'s to Nata Raja is very distant.^[51]