All the world’s a stage in Kathmandu

Along with the Sherpa community, it is perhaps Kathmandu Valley’s Newāh Civilization that has been the most studied by anthropologists, architects, historians and social scientists. 

Tomes have been written about the built environment of the Valley’s former kingdoms, the influence of Indian culture, and how it in turn inspired the temples, monasteries and monuments in Tibet, through China right up to Korea and Japan.

Lately, there has also been an attempt to recognise and preserve not just the brick and mortar landscape of Kathmandu, but also the intangible heritage of the Newāh people. A critical component of the ancient festivals in the streets, alleys and baha of the inner cities are ritual plays and dance.

Gérard Toffin is a social anthropologist with the Centre d’Etudes Himalayennes at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France, and has been researching in the region since the early 1970s, focusing on Newāh society and especially its Jyapu farmers. Lately, his work has focused on indigenous theatrical performances, and how they are evolving with modern influences. 

RECORDING RITUALS

The result of his study is this hefty ethnographic book, Newar Theatrical Performances: Religious, Royal and Comic Aspects, delving into sacred performances. This is the first-ever detailed documentation of the minutest aspects of traditional plays and holy ceremonies of Kathmandu Valley.

This book is not for the package tourist on a quick walkabout of Patan, the details and terminology can be daunting even for natives to navigate. But this is what social science research is supposed to do – take a deep dive into cultures that we take for granted either because we are a part of it, or because we have never bothered to find out its meaning. 

Dance forms with mythological themes, masked processions, gestures, facial expressions of the performers, have all been passed down from one generation to the next, adhering to age-old codes.

The world is moving at an accelerated pace because of TikTok-induced globalised connectivity, but traditional gender or caste dynamics and hierarchies are carried over intact in many of these performances. It is as if traditional theatre itself is a time capsule giving us a peep into the past.

Some of the performances and dance are in danger of going extinct as the population ages and the young migrate out. However, there has been a cultural renaissance among the Newāh guthi overseeing these ritual plays, dances, or chariot processions. The next generation of apprentices are being trained. This pride in heritage means that Kathmandu Valley civilization is not as endangered as it may appear. 

Gérard Toffin’s book is an important ethnographic work that will help preserve the Nepal Valley’s unique blend of urban-rural, cosmopolitan-agricultural, Hindu-Buddhist, indigenous-national.

The Tantric choreography of Newāh theatre, just as the kama sutra depictions on erotic temple art, show Indian influence, but Toffin says they have been ‘Newarized’. 

One example is the sexually-explicit shadow play staged every year since 1690 CE by Jhyalcha Guthi in Patan that exposes the infidelity of King Yog Narendra Malla.

Toffin devotes a whole last section of his book to irreverent plays (khyalah) that ridiculed the rich and powerful, the royals and upper castes and their shenanigans. 

He examines the importance of comic relief at a time when death was ever-present in historic Kathmandu with its frequent epidemics. One cholera outbreak in 1885 is estimated to have killed 10,000 people – a fifth of Kathmandu’s population at the time. 

The Saparu festival in Kathmandu and Mataya in Patan memorialised through street processions those who had died the previous year – and this was institutionalised into Gai Jatra by King Pratap Malla in the 17th century to console his queen after their second son was killed by an elephant. Families were asked to file past the palace to show the queen that she was not the only one grieving. 

Pratap Malla also allowed clowns, burlesque plays, and satirists to make the queen laugh. The Rana and Shah regimes which suppressed free speech continued the Gai Jatra tradition to allow citizens to let off steam. Rulers were lampooned, and the performances involved scatological jokes, cross-dressing and lewd acts. 

Interestingly, the Nepal Bhasa word ‘pyakha’ means both ‘dance’ and ‘theatre’ (today also ‘cinema’, as Toffin notes) and so the performances were also a combination of ritual dance, traditional music and a stage play. Stories involve gods, goddesses and mythological characters, and are passed down through generations of performers. (See adjoining article on Pāhāñ Charey.)

Street performances by masked dancers, like in the ‘Katti Pyakha’ in Patan, enact divine themes. The moving deities demand as much reverence as their static idols in the inner sanctum of temples.

The book devotes a whole section to the importance of cultic masked dances where the performer is possessed by the spirit, and goes into a trembling trance. 

Some of this is now simplified and secularised into performances for tourists in hotels, but the genuine original masked dance troupes still parade down the streets, proving that ancient and modern are made to co-evolve in ways that only Kathmandu knows how.