Mediators to the Underground—Disposers of Pollution

An important use of stones as deities is in the marking and protection of boundaries. The forces of the boundary protectors are directed to the outside of the boundary. They keep things out, rather than in. As we have noted in the last chapter, Bhaktapur has another boundary, that with whatever it is that lies beneath the city. While the space above the city is open to the sphere of the astrologically important "astral deities" and to the vaguely conceived heavens of the various gods, it is not conceived as separated from the city by a boundary. What is below is somewhat more problematic. It joins with the outside of the city beyond its encircling boundaries as a realm of somewhat nebulous forces, such as the nagas , which may be dangerous if disturbed or inadvertently encountered.^[57] The underground, like the area outside the city is a realm into which waste and pollution can pass. Stones that are the loci for the passage act as a kind of valve, which consume the dangerous pollution and/or prevent its return. Like all deities of similar function, the stone deities involved are dangerous in themselves. In the last chapter we discussed the chwasa , stones placed at the major crossroads in each neighborhood. Portions of the head of a sacrificial animal which were used ceremonially at feasts must be brought there by the senior woman of the house. Clothes worn by a person at the time of or just before death are also brought to the chwasa . It is the traditional responsibility of designated members of the Jugi thar to remove these clothes from the chwasa . We have noted in the last chapter other polluting materials deposited at the chwasa in Bhaktapur and other Newar communities. For some religious theorists the god of the chwasa is the dangerous goddess, Matangi^[*] . Matangi^[*] (or more popularly the "Chwasa god," or the "Kala god") consumes the dangerous pollution of the materials left on it.^[58]

Food left over from a feast and thus polluted may be given to a Po(n), as a human pollution remover, or it may be thrown into a garbage pit in the courtyard at the rear of the house. The courtyard is the seat of a form of Siva,^[59] Luku Mahadya:, the "hiding Siva." This is a stone buried in the courtyard and worshiped once a year on Sithi Nakha, the day that ceremonially marks the end of the dry season and the anticipation of the annual rainy season (chap. 15). According to Vogt, Siva as

Luku Mahadya: "feeds upon the waste of the houses and transmutes it into creative power. To do this he takes the form of a ghoul. Otherwise the pisaca [a dangerous spirit, see below] . . . would come and feast on it. They [pisacas ] are evil ghouls with only skeleton frames who are associated with decay and madness" (1977, 103).

A third set of disposers of symbolic waste or pollution are found outside the city in the cremation grounds, and are also natural stones. These are the Masan (cremation ground) Bhairavas. In the main dipa or masan (Nepali, from Sanskit smasana^[*] ), the Cupi(n)ga:, the Masan Bhairava or Masan Bhaila Dya: is represented and focused in a stone believed to be under the ground at the place where the cremations are done. In the other two dipas there are visible stones at the surface of the earth, representing and embodying the divinity. During cremations Masan Bhairava is conceived as being below the burning body. The body must be consumed before the spirit is free to leave the locality. The fire does this, but Masan Bhairava also is associated with the destruction of the body and the liberation of the spirit. In his main location at the Cupi(n)ga: dip , Masan Bhairava is worshiped or at least thought to be worshiped by various peoples whose powers are independent of the ordinary priestly system of the city. These include non-Newar Shaivite pilgrims and sadhus, shaman-like spirit doctors, members of the Jugi thar , and witches. Some Tantric pujas are rumored to be offered to him there. These are all quests for religious/magical power or siddhi beyond the ordinary interior moral controls and institutional arrangements of the city.

The taming of Masan Bhairava is reflected in a legend. The Bhairava of Cupi(n)ga:, whose stone is supposed to have a yantra engraved on it, is associated with an anthropomorphic form of the deity that roamed the city in the past and was the cause of much trouble, including the death of many young people in Bhaktapur. A Tantric priest of great power, understanding the cause of Bhaktapur's troubles, seized Masan Bhairava and pulled out his tongue and cut it into three parts. The three pieces of the tongue are now three contiguous stones, named "Swatuna Bhairava," which function as a chetrapal in the Inaco Twa: in the eastern part of the city, and as important markers for certain important festival actions during the Mohani and Biska: festival sequences.^[60] The remainder of the Bhairava remains now usefully fixed in the cremation ground.

Masan Bhairava is a clear example of the theme common to many stories and ideas about the dangerous deities—that they are destructive

forces captured (more or less tentatively) through power for some special purpose, and put to the use of the city as a city divinity (compare the Nine Durgas legend, chap. 15).