<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151128/636a67bd9c7e80680e0599f3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/>Nepal’s Gurung Community marked its New Year on 31 December in Kathmandu with much fanfare and merriment. It is the time of the year when the Gurung diaspora comes together from far corners of Nepal and the world, and it is an occasion to dress up in traditional costumes and sashay en-masse to folk tunes, drink, and walk in street parades.On Tuesday, Tundikhel in Kathmandu was filled with colourful stalls as members of the Gurung community performed the syarge dance in tune with the drums (tandu) and cymbals (jhyali).Men were dressed head to toe in traditional Gurung garb – a Bhangra (white cloth across the chest) and Kachhad (short sarong) while women were in Gurung cholo and lungi as they marked Tamu Lhosar.Photos by Monika Deupala.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151128/636a67c09c7e80680e0599f4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151128/636a67c39c7e80680e0599f5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151128/636a67c69c7e80680e0599f6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151128/636a67c99c7e80680e0599f7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151128/636a67cc9c7e80680e0599f8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151128/636a67cf9c7e80680e0599f9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151128/636a67d39c7e80680e0599fajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151128/636a67d69c7e80680e0599fbjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151128/636a67d99c7e80680e0599fcjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151128/636a67dd9c7e80680e0599fdjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151128/636a67e09c7e80680e0599fejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427">Also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/mycity/2017/12/31/tamu-lhosar/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tamu Lhosar</a>, Ryan Chang

original

674x448

610x380

500x500

400x266

400x240

400x203

301x200

1250x600

1084x550

Tamu Lhosar in Kathmandu

https://youtu.be/1Ur3EvdiaikDevotees lined up inside the Tashi Chhyoling Gumba of Nalma village, Lamjung, recently on Buddha Jayanti to prepare the Ghatu dance. Interestingly, although the day begins with offerings and lamps for the Buddha, the dance begins by invoking Hindu gods.Ghatu seems to bring many cultures and languages together across the mountains of Central Nepal. In Nalma village, a two-hour ride from the district headquarter of Besishahar, four young girls are dressing up in traditional Gurung costumes to prepare for the dance. The rituals actually begin in January on the festival of Shree Panchami, when the dancers are selected. They are then trained until the performance starts on Buddha Jayanti, and goes on for up to a week. <img width="575" height="1024" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121144/636a41ef9c7e80680e04a6a4jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>On full moon day the dancers line up in a community building at the center of the village, and begin swaying slowly to the music as village elders sing to the beat of the madal. Ghatu tells the tragic story of King Pashramu and Queen Yambawati: Pashramu goes on a hunt, meets and marries Yambawati, and they have a child. Pashramu is killed in action, Yambawati self-immolates on her husband's pyre. The dance climaxes with Yambawati's grief as she gives up her kingdom, says goodbye to her little son, and embraces death. The dancers go into a trembling trance as they perform for hours.Ghatu dance is performed all over central Nepal by Gurung, Magar, Dura, Balami and Kumal communities. But no one is sure how it originated. "It was passed down to us by our ancestors, but they did not tell us where they learnt it or how it began," says Jung Bahadur Gurung, dance teacher in Nalma. "People believe it's based on a local story, and that Pashramu and Yambawati were a local Gurung king and queen."Gurung knows the songs, but says he does not know what language they are in. It sounds like Tharu or Bhojpuri, languages spoken in southern Nepal. Since Pashramu meets Yambawati when he is out hunting and far away from his mountain homeland, some people speculate that queen Yambawati was a woman from the Tarai and brought the songs with her. The Gurungs also do not have the practice of sati depicted in the dance. Considering this and other factors, folk music expert Kishor Gurung concludes that Ghatu was actually brought to Nepal by Lahures who went to India. "Nepali soldiers who joined the British Indian armies must have brought it back with them 150-200 years ago."Professor Yubaraj Gurung thinks the dance is essentially a way for the community to comes to terms with pain and relate it to Yambawati's grief. But there is agreement on what makes the dancers go into a trance as they dance with their eyes closed, swaying slowly to the music."The dancers sometimes don't even know the story, but go with the flow and where the music takes them," says folk music researcher Jhuma Limbu who is making a documentary about Ghatu. "It is a matter of great pride that music which explores the depths of human psychology is still alive in Nepal. We must do our best to preserve it." <img width="2000" height="1123" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121148/636a41f29c7e80680e04a6a5jpeg.jpg" alt="">As with most folk art, this music has been passed down and preserved orally, and it is known to affect the dancers anytime it is played. Grown women who were former dancers sometimes fall into a trance when they hear the music. Villagers here forbid recording the music, and the performances only happen at designated times.With the march of time, interest is waning in such lengthy dances when other means of entertainment are easily available, says musician Raju Gurung: "It is a very sad that people are losing interest in the ritual part of the dance and it is becoming more and more commercialised. We love our dance very much and would like to preserve it, but it is a losing battle."

Ghatu dance of Lamjung

<img width="538" height="541" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121140/636a402b9c7e80680e04a606jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>Though the medium is oil on canvas, Mann Gurung employs only sepia tones in his paintings, evoking the era of old photographs. Indeed, his artwork harks back to an older, more innocent time in Nepal. The  women still wear the fariya choli, and the men are in patuki and dhaka topi.Gurung’s second solo exhibition, Lost in Transition, is on at Siddhartha Art Gallery in Baber Mahal Revisited from 9 May - 9 June. Though most of the works are oil paintings, there are also graphite and ink drawings. They differ from his previous solo exhibition Power, Politics and War, which was predictably focused on politics. This time around, the emphasis is on a visual depiction of social change.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-karnali-on-canvas/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Karnali on Canvas</a>, Sewa Bhattarai  <img width="640" height="920" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121140/636a402d9c7e80680e04a607jpeg.jpg" alt="">Gurung has captured women who collected milk in wooden theki, and have now turned to plastic Coke bottles. Though they cling to traditional dresses, they cannot help wearing Crocs on their feet. He has captured the dhyangro hand drum, an important instrument in his community that seems torn and neglected, and an old record player that looks like it hasn’t been used in a while.  These portraits are from Khorla, a mountain village in Gurung’s home district of Gorkha. Collectively, the impression is of a bygone era: of a place caught in transition as traditional values are fast being replaced by modern ideas. Gurung’s paintings capture the reality of most of Nepal today. With the youth migrating out, the elderly and women are left to fend for themselves. It is an uphill battle to cling to their traditional lifestyles.Read also: <a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-art-now-in-vienna/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal Art now in Vienna</a> Gurung believes he has captured the last of a generation that carries our identity, as younger Nepalis are ‘already fitted out in denims and pride themselves for embracing western culture’.“They have already made a transition from madal to box speakers, rodhi to mp3 players, hand sewn bags to polythene ones, handmade garments to imported polyester, bamboo baskets to zebra bags, and from sanduk to flatscreen TVs. We will soon lose the older generation, erasing hundreds of years of our identity, tradition and culture,” laments Gurung.His paintings force us to ponder identity, how we can hold on it, and whether it is even possible. The paintings are a testament to a lost time, and present Gurung’s concern for his own heritage, which he seems powerless to conserve. But at least he has preserved and documented a part of his culture in his art. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-craft-of-art/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Craft of Art</a>, Sewa Bhattarai <img width="1052" height="584" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121140/636a402f9c7e80680e04a608jpeg.jpg" alt=""> Lost in TransitionSiddhartha Art Gallery, Baber Mahal RevisitedUntil 9 June

Lost in Transition

Fenerbahçe Beko won the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague finals in Abu Dhabi, held 23-25 May, defeating Monaco 81-70 in the final. Olympiacos, who defeated Panathinaikos 97-93, finished the series in third place. The Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the final match, Nigel Hayes-Davis from Fenerbahçe Beko, received a prize of 1,000,000 Miles&amp;Smiles from Turkish Airlines’ Chief Commercial Officer Ahmet Olmuştur. The carrier has been the title sponsor of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague, a top tier tournament, since 2010.

Turkish Basketball

In the black and white photograph, General Wangdu smiles broadly in front of the dusty cactus garden in Kathmandu’s Annapurna Hotel. With an ill-fitting jacket and shaggy hair he looks benign enough, but this was the last leader of the Tibetan freedom fighters who led the resistance against the Chinese from their remote mountain hideouts in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/comings-and-goings-in-mustang">Mustang</a>. Five months later, Wangdu was dead. Snapped in March 1974, I had only recently arrived in Nepal. How did I meet this legendary fighter? Possibly with his devoted camp follower, Lynne Klapecki, and probably in the Om Restaurant near Freak Street which was the preferred <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/hippie-trail-nostalgia-in-kathmandu">hippie hang-out</a>. Om Lobsang and his brother Yeshe were <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/earthquake-brings-back-memories-of-camps-for-tibetan-refugees">refugees from East Tibet </a>whose cafe offered a friendly welcome and<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/momo-loco"> the best momos</a> - they became my in-laws after I married their eldest brother Tenzin, but that was a decade later.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_4573b34282b0f5395c007243d6bef12c7ba76bfd520419e994cdcea048d795a1.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2025052403054_4573b34282b0f5395c007243d6bef12c7ba76bfd520419e994cdcea048d795a1" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1583" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>Photo: LISA CHOEGYAL</figcaption> </figure>  Wangdu’s English was enthusiastically rudimentary, but even riding around town with him on the back of an aging <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/kathmandu-s-new-motorbike-museum">motorbike</a>, he was a commanding presence. Always flanked by armed outriders, impressive scars marked his forearms and a pistol hung from the cord around his neck. A charismatic guerrilla leader, Wangdu was celebrated by his followers for his tough commitment and respected for his measured pragmatism. He seemed so young to have shouldered such a responsibility of command, leading hundreds of hardened <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/50-years-after-the%20raid-into-Tibet,1012#google_vignette">Khampa combatants </a>through what had been a particularly <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/heavy-snowfall-over-nepal-himalaya">brutal winter in Mustang</a>, the last bastion to hold out against the Chinese invasion of their Tibetan homeland.&nbsp; The freedom fighters of Tibet, known as the Chushi-Gangdruk, had emerged to resist the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/territorialism">Chinese takeover</a> of Tibet during the 1950s. Estimated to be 80,000-strong at the time of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/what-or-who-after-the-dalai-lama">the Dalai Lama</a>’s final escape to India in 1959, the sheer number of Chinese deployed into Tibet eventually forced the Chushi-Gangdruk to retreat to Mustang, From this high Himalayan stronghold, they continued cross-border raids on the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) throughout the 1960s.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_8a4a935ba25ae79dc3a63bb5c14626927020e5ec098093c45ccb9a5982e009fd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="2025052403054_8a4a935ba25ae79dc3a63bb5c14626927020e5ec098093c45ccb9a5982e009fd" data-rendition-name="original" width="1114" height="676" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>Guerrillas known as the Chushi-Gangdruk emerged to resist the Chinese annexation of Tibet during the 1950s. Photo courtesy: MIKEL DUNHAM</figcaption> </figure>  Their Kathmandu base was a small discreet lodge in a back lane near Rani Pokhari. Sipping sweet tea from a blue mug with a chipped lid, I sat bemused in a corner of the Mustang Hotel room whilst Wangdu and his cohorts received a battered brown suitcase from their CIA connection, a tousle-haired American in a leather jacket. Heaved onto the dingy bedspread that covered the thin mattress, it was clicked open to reveal piles of neatly stacked dollar bills.&nbsp; I cannot think why Wangdu allowed me to witness this handover but I was clearly no threat, a newly arrived world traveller with no understanding of the stakes nor any Nepali or <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/tibetan-music-in-nepals-sacred-valley">Tibetan language</a>. Despite armed guards in the corridor,Wangdu radiated confidence and bravado, and there was a practiced familiarity to the tense transaction. This deadly dance for many years had been funded by the Americans, tolerated by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-kingdom-within-a-republic">Mustang’s residents</a>, and permitted by King Mahendra and the Nepali authorities who it suited to turn a blind eye.&nbsp; But Mahendra died in 1972, and times were changing. Richard Nixon’s ping-pong diplomacy thawed the cold war and signalled a fresh entente with China. Nepal’s yet-to-be-crowned <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/if-birendra-was-alive-nepal-could-still-be-a-monarchy">King Birendra </a>was under pressure to curb the irritating incursions against the PLA launched from the Nepali territory of Mustang. Keen to appease his northern neighbour, on several occasions the King summoned Wangdu for peace talks but, despite increasingly overwhelming odds, Wangdu refused to surrender.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_a8efd5cfb92cd997bd7cb74296a936fef46e2f7428f9cd642b03f1ac4ea11ecb.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="2025052403054_a8efd5cfb92cd997bd7cb74296a936fef46e2f7428f9cd642b03f1ac4ea11ecb" data-rendition-name="original" width="1055" height="885" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>General Wangdu flanked by two Tibetan resistance fighters in Mustang in the 1970s. Photo courtesy: MIKEL DUNHAM</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_75969125a745847a2ef82b6fe8b9106c0b21a116d85b8efdf5d2ee89a347bb31.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="2025052403054_75969125a745847a2ef82b6fe8b9106c0b21a116d85b8efdf5d2ee89a347bb31" data-rendition-name="original" width="1044" height="792" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>King Birendra with General Wangdu (right in dark glasses) taken in 1974 possibly in Mustang after one of their few attempts at negotiation. Photo courtesy: RAJRNDRA KUNWAR</figcaption> </figure>  While I naively rode pillion around Kathmandu in the spring sunshine, Wangdu was in the midst of what turned out to be his final round of negotiations with the Nepal government. Refusing to cease hostilities with the Chinese, Wangdu must have suspected the cost of his decision, making his cheerful smile in the photograph all the more poignant and brave. It was only much later that I appreciated the significance of the moment. Wangdu had been sent to replace the first resistance leader in Mustang, Baba Gen Yeshe, a much derided corrupt character who stole money meant for his troops and exploited fleeing refugees by seizing their treasures. Baba Gen Yeshe never forgave Wangdu,and sought revenge in May 1974 by betraying him and his commanders to the Nepal authorities. Renewed Chinese incursions from the north, active PLA collusion with the Nepali forces under the new King, and treachery from within the Chushi-Gangdrukranks combined to seal their fate.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_e0987a7c90d76431b0d7d5e6115ebfe3dbda7ab939e5941e079c18d722e884c0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_16" data-image-id="2025052403054_e0987a7c90d76431b0d7d5e6115ebfe3dbda7ab939e5941e079c18d722e884c0" data-rendition-name="original" width="1400" height="769" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>British television journalists George Patterson and Adrian Cowell embedded themselves with Khampa guerrillas and accompanied them from Tsum Valley on a cross border raid on a Chinese Army convoy in 1964. Photo: ESSAYS ON NEPAL / SAM COWAN</figcaption> </figure>  Mikel Dunham, renowned author of Buddha’s Warriors, writes: ‘It is possible that Wangdu was waiting for some cue from the Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India. It is equally possible – during that last, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/the-human-cost-of-nepal-s-yarsa-gold-rush?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR31-Cqw8oyIwMPzf_35e4Skr0ululJvLf3_vDkzHn-AYG2h8uPw2rqqErg_aem_tGVn5coY1-jA7fze_xqhew">desolate winter </a>– that he made the decision to go out in glory rather than admit defeat. Over the last fifteen years, Wangdu had experienced Tibet’s organized resistance being squeezed and shoved around by every conceivable outside force.&nbsp; First they had been pushed out of their own country by the PLA; then they had been refused sanction while on <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/borderlines/nepal-india-trans-boundary-bonds?fbclid=IwAR0PpJ5zUEbwdug3g_U3ar6FUugngRY0S8Tl2v_7wqzrsHmXWcXsKjvL4t4">Indian soil</a>; then they were abandoned by the Americans because, apparently, Nixon wanted to make friends with Wangdu’s mortal enemies, the communists; then they had been betrayed by the vampiric Baba Gen Yeshe – a Tibetan and, even worse, a fellow Khampa; and now, finally Wangdu’s army was being evicted by the Nepalis. One thing was certain: Wangdu was a warrior. To imagine Wangdu simply giving up and settling down in the pacific squalor of a <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/elderly-left-in-bhutan-refugee-camp">refugee camp </a>was unthinkable.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_8fc1ffef4ae751628b90ae781b66e11e51e4fdde2787207c9042efbee345ce49.jpg" data-media-id="editor_20" data-image-id="2025052403054_8fc1ffef4ae751628b90ae781b66e11e51e4fdde2787207c9042efbee345ce49" data-rendition-name="original" width="500" height="746" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>The much derided Baba Gen Yeshe, the first Tibetan resistance leader in Mustang, who betrayed Wangdu for personal gain. Photo courtesy: MIKEL DUNHAM</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_b1d833cdb00d3ac4416b844d8730475cd88c238caaaf8da69889a584eea229a3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_21" data-image-id="2025052403054_b1d833cdb00d3ac4416b844d8730475cd88c238caaaf8da69889a584eea229a3" data-rendition-name="original" width="500" height="656" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>Aditya SJB Rana of the Royal Nepal Army whose team ambushed Wangdu and his cohorts at the top of Tinker Pass in Darchula, West Nepal. Photo courtesy: GAUTAM SJB RANA</figcaption> </figure>  By August 1974 the game was up. Wangdu and six of his exhausted party were killed on their horses by <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=7270">the Royal Nepal Army</a> on the brink of escape. The officer in charge, Aditya SJB Rana, cleverly predicted their route into India after they failed to silence a police radio in Yari. A carefully laid ambush trapped them near the summit of the Tinker Pass in Darchula,at 5,000 meters the highest military operation of its time. Wangdu’s body was helicoptered to Kathmandu, and a big show made of the royal Nepal victory.&nbsp; The Tibetan armed insurgency against China had reached its end.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250524030520_3ff9c6fc85a65bc9a2c3afe9736d9f5f9413de752e790a5d9dca0981ea94f9b4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_23" data-image-id="20250524030520_3ff9c6fc85a65bc9a2c3afe9736d9f5f9413de752e790a5d9dca0981ea94f9b4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> </figure>

The Last Days of the Khampa

Starting 17 September Turkish Airlines will fly daily to Seville, one of Spain’s major tourist draws. This is Turkish’s sixth destination in Spain after Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Malaga, and Bilbao. Seville is in the Andalusia region on Spain’s south coast with a rich Moor history. There are approximately 30,000 Nepalis living in Spain.&nbsp;

Turkish to Seville

The newly-formed Himalayan Art Council is set to launch Nepal’s National Art Protection Platform that seeks to preserve <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-history-of-heritage">Nepal’s unique cultural heritage </a>using<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/artificial-censorship"> AI-powered tools</a>. The Council seeks to safeguard <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepali-art-going-places">Nepali art works</a> from neglect, theft and counterfeiting as well as preserve existing artwork and celebrate living masters by giving them a cultural space to continue the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/sacred-survival">sacred art traditions</a>. "We are introducing a new digital platform designed to preserve, verify and elevate <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-new-generation-of-alternative-artists">Nepal’s art for generations to come,</a>” says a statement from the Council, adding that the digital platform will use AI told for authentication and blockchain to keep track of works of art. Artists can now be protected by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/ayo-ai?fbclid=IwAR1uwmTVq4gUB70ljfRezjzukD9ArWXPuMnUikopeQ8PoiZMjicToPSwhKE&amp;=1">AI tools</a> that detect forgeries, identify their work even when unsigned, and ensure they receive proper recognition and credit. The archives will be searchable with translated inscription and interactive guides. Says curator Meena Lama: “AI and blockchains are tools that give us the power to detect fakes and identify unsigned paintings and track every piece. With these tools we can restore trust, secure authorship and give artists the dignity they deserve.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250514170544_2ab58f6313c0458f75114a692b0016bd9efb3b59d5f8f07f0da72e1e37b82f53.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20250514170544_2ab58f6313c0458f75114a692b0016bd9efb3b59d5f8f07f0da72e1e37b82f53" data-rendition-name="original" width="1300" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Artwork at the Traditional Art Exhibition at Patan Museum."> <figcaption>Artwork at the Traditional Art Exhibition at Patan Museum.</figcaption> </figure>  The Council is also holding an exhibition of Nepali cultural masterpieces with 50 historical <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Buzz-the-art,671">thangka and paubha </a>by past masters and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/between-the-sacred-and-everyday">contemporary works by current artists</a>. This curated collection is a living tribute to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/when-yaks-go-so-does-culture">Himalayan culture</a> with economic depictions of deities, mandala and sacred narratives. The exhibition at <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/a-portal-into-patan-s-past-and-present">Patan Museum</a> also provides an opportunity to meet painters and custodians of art and culture. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/golden-deities">Golden deities</a>, Sewa Bhattarai ‘The exhibition is only the first step in a long journey to ensure that Nepali art is no just seen but fully understood, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Narratives-of-Faith-and-Memory-Remembering-the-Lost-Sculptures-of-Kathmandu-exhibition,987">protected and remembered</a>,’ the Council says. Artist Kailash K Shrestha of Artudio has spent decades promoting thankha and paubha traditions because of their beauty and devotional meaning. But he also says artists are underpaid, exploited and ignored. He adds, “AI and blockchain are not just buzzwords, they are powerful tools that can protect Nepal’s artists from fraud, verify authenticity and build a permanent record of provenance.” Traditional Art Exhibition Till 17 May Patan Museum