CHAPTER 9

The Panchakoshi of Dullu: The Fire Frame of the Malla Imperial Capital

Marie Lecomte-Tilouine

As a religion without a Church, Hinduism is characterised by very strong anchoring points in the territory, with sanctuaries, holy mountains and rivers1 marking the boundaries of a Hindu country. Political power relies on the patronisation of such sacred places, but their relations in the Hindu world were thus defined by H. Bakker (1992: viii): "[S]acred place was the focus, not the locus of political interests". For this author, their relation to space opposes the sacred place and the seat of political power: while the capital is mobile, the sacrality of the holy place "resides partly in its stabilitas loci."2

Though indeed these remarks apply to many cases, they are not the general rule in the Hindu context because political power does not settle randomly in just any place. It has often monopolised sacred sites, by controlling access to them or even by establishing themselves there. Such was the policy of the two most important medieval kingdoms of the central Himalayas: those of the Kathmandu Valley illustrate the first configuration, and the Malla Empire in the western part of present-day Nepal, the second. The first royal capital of the original kingdom of Nepal,3 Devapatan, was established in the immediate vicinity of Pashupatinath, the principal place of pilgrimage in the valley which it controlled. Afterwards, the capital actually showed some mobility, but when three royal centres controlled the then small territory of Nepal, they developed ceaseless strategies for the site of Pashupatinath, where the dead reach Shiva’s paradise. In fact, on several occasions, the kingdom of Kathmandu quite simply blocked its access to the kingdom of Patan, its rival. In this case, although the capital was spatially disjoined from the sacred centre, it tended to be physically connected to it in an exclusive way, binding focus and locus. This symbolic bond was further affirmed by its remarkable materialisation in a gigantic banner, which, according to the chronicles, connected the royal palace of Kathmandu to the temple of Pashupatinath, though distanced by three or four kilometres. In the valley of Nepal, the capital thus rested on a sacred place to which it controlled access, drawing its prestige from its capacity to place it out of the reach of those who depended on another royal centre - or furthermore, represented it.

Dullu, a holy capital

1 These sites remain markers of religious identity even when they are no longer directly under Hindu power, as shown by the repeated conflicts at the time of the pilgrimage to the site of Amarnath in the Kashmir controlled by Muslims. 2 In the same book, J.C. Heesterman (1992: 69) proposes a less strict definition of the sacred site, which is often fixed, but "...remarkably expansive, amenable to endless multiplication and, on occasion, even completely mobile." 3 Until the conquest in 1769, the term Nepal indicated only the Kathmandu Valley and its surroundings.

The heart of the Malla Empire displays, for its part, a complete superposition of the seat of political power and the main sacred place of pilgrimage on its territory. Indeed, the capital of the vast Malla Empire, which later became that of the small kingdom of Dullu, is located in the centre of a religious area, known as the Panchakoshi (pañcakośī), which is remarkable by the presence of many natural gas flames. There is no doubt that the establishment of the capital in this place answered a desire for legitimacy, and responded to the development of a particular form of royalty related to renouncement. The configuration of the Panchakoshi and the myths which are linked to it may be added to the few elements of the history of the Malla Empire in our possession to outline an embryonic ethno-history of its capital, its form of royalty and more generally to fuel our understanding of the concept of territory among the Khas. There are more elements dating from the later period, when the site of the capital became the heart of the kingdom of Dullu, because of the Gorkhali conquest at the end of the 18th century, which gave place to new, written regulations. At the time of the conquest, some details4 indicate that the Panchakoshi pilgrimage was no longer very famous. As for today, this "territory of the flames" which has much to attract devotees, has fallen into complete neglect. These elements raise many questions concerning the relationship between the sacred place and the site of political authority. They suggest how a sacred site, as extraordinary as it may be, falls into a kind of indifference when not sponsored. Locally, however, the Panchakoshi continue to give shape to the space in a particularly organised and fascinating way, testifying to the role it may have played in the past.

For almost a millennium, at least from 1100 to 1960, the Panchakoshi territory formed the framework of Hindu5 royalties. Framing the Malla imperial capital from 1100 to 1400, then forming the "central part" of the Dullu kingdom from 1400 to 1960,6 the Panchakoshi sanctuaries are mentioned in several historical documents. They are located on an important trade route: the royal path which linked the two capitals of the Malla sovereigns ("Dullu the great and Sinja the market")7 as well as on the route to India and Tibet. Presented by many historians as having respectively formed the winter capital and the summer capital of the Malla Empire, a seasonal pattern frequent in the Himalayas, nothing allows one to attribute these functions to them with certitude. Dullu is, for its part, mentioned in the first known document of this dynasty, dated 1223. Its original text disappeared, but in its English translation by Atkinson (1884: 516-518), King Krā Calla ratifies in this inscription a land donation from his town of "Dulu". The copy of the original Sanskrit text made in the 19th century for Atkinson (see Chapters 11 and 12), shows that the translation is not accurate on this point, as it is literally said that the text was written "in the military camp near the Vaiśvānara 4 Thus, on his passage in 1805, Amar Simha Thapa took note of the existence of a purāṇa dedicated to the site of the Panchakoshi and asked for its copy, suggesting that the text was unknown to him (Naraharinath IP 2.3: 386). 5 Hindu is taken here in a very broad meaning, since Buddhist and Jain elements were numerous during the Malla period. 6 The Panchakoshi form "the central area", mājhkhaṇḍ of Dullu, which remained an independent kingdom inside Nepal after its conquest in 1789 and until 1960. The code of the country of 1960 (Muluki Ain of 2017 V.S.) stipulates that the rājā of Dullu will preserve however his title until his death. 7 Such as a local saying qualifies them today: "Sinjā hāṭ, Dullu virāṭ". The area of Dullu is already called virāṭ deś in an inscription dated 1358 from King Pṛithvī Malla (Naraharinath IP 2.1: 69-72).

kṣetra", or the "territory of the flames", a name which is still used to designate the Panchakoshi. This first element not only shows that the Malla sovereigns had settled in this place very early, but also that they defined themselves with regard to the holy flames. The importance of Dullu a century later during the Empire’s climax is illustrated by the choice of King Pṛithvī Malla, to have his double genealogy engraved there in 1357.

The relationship between Dullu and Sinja would merit a study in itself, but the few documents currently at our disposal do not yet enable one to undertake it. Today, the inhabitants of Dullu, who present Sinja as their rival, often connect the two sites: on the square facing their palace, two identical stone lions recall this. One is fixed upright in the ground and venerated: it is the Dullu lion. The other is lying down without consideration: it is the Sinja lion. It is said to have come from Sinja to fight its alter ego from Dullu, to have been defeated and to have remained since then in this vanquished position. Now, competition between Dullu and Sinja dates back at least to the 15th century, since from the 16th century onwards, Jumla (the modern name of Sinja) became a power without rival. We shall also note that more attention has been given to Sinja than to Dullu until now, for reasons independent of the place they may have occupied in the past. Thus all the specialists who worked on the history of the Malla Empire from Tibetan sources associated Ya-rtse, the Tibetan name for the Malla capital, with Sinja. However, a Tibetan of the 13th century thus warns the king of Yar-tse against the harshness of his country: "You are at present going to Tibet [and] your body is dressed in white cotton... You are fond of eating white rice and oranges."8 There is of course an anomaly here: Jumla is a cold area where the inhabitants have woollen clothes for the winter, only eat little rice (which is not white at this altitude), and even more rarely oranges. On the other hand, Dullu abounds not only in rice fields but also in orange trees and the presence of these trees is still today a distinctive feature of its microclimate, because to its north, it is too cold, and to its south, too dry, for their fruiting. The kings of Ya-rtse were thus perhaps sovereigns of Dullu and not of Sinja, or at least of both places. If Dullu lost its importance thereafter, while that of the lords of Sinja grew, a certain number of elements9 lead us to believe that the configuration was different at the time of the Malla. Whatever the case, the fame of Dullu faded early, in spite of the exceptional site on which it is established: the Panchakoshi.

The elements referred to by this name are not clearly defined locally, nor even its meaning. Pañc means undoubtedly "five", and the Panchakoshi are always presented as a set of five entities. As for kośi, some people understand it as a measurement of distance and define the Panchakoshi as a sacred territory whose circumference measures five koś, or approximately fifteen kilometres;10 for others,

8 Vitali (1996: 464). The variety of rice which is cultivated in Jumla, has a brown grain when it is raw, reddish when it is cooked. 9 Thus there are many more monuments which may be linked to the Malla period in the Dullu area than in Jumla. (A record of the old steles, pillars, water reservoirs and temples in these two areas was done by M. Lecomte-Tilouine in Dullu and by Dominique Baudais in Jumla). 10 It is the attested meaning of the expression Pancakrośi (Skt: kroś: measure of distance) which is attached to other Hindu sites of pilgrimage, in particular to Varanasi. There, however, it is the diameter that would measure five kroś (N. Gutschow: 1999).

kośi designates a river and the name of the site would refer to its five rivers11 or its five places of ablutions, tirtha; others say that the holy space is surrounded by five widened mounts similar to wooden pots for grain, kośi,12 but most people think that the expression indicates that there are five main temples.13 We will here explore this remarkable site and its mythology in order to highlight the role that it could have played in the course of history, by its instrumentalization. Once the five rivers are located on a map,14 one realises immediately that the imperial capital was surrounded by a water enclosure, forming a kind of natural moat for the "Dullu fort", Dullu gaḍhi. The fifth sacred river, smaller, crosses this almost closed perimeter. Along it, oil flows and natural gas flames burn.

In the Panchakoshi area, ten flames burned permanently in the 1960s, while there were perhaps thirty-two15 during the medieval period. Today, only three permanent ones remain but Petroleum Nepal16 recently counted forty-five natural gas holes in the Panchakoshi area.17 These openings are well known to the local 11 This etymology is probably reinforced by the existence of seven rivers called the Sapta Koshi in eastern Nepal. In this last case, the seven rivers are associated with Sage Kushika from whom they supposedly get their name. 12 These pots are cut by the Raute who exchange them with villagers for grain. 13 One finds the same definition of the Panchakoshi of Rajim, in central India. On the website devoted to it, one learns that the city contains five lingas: "that’s why this area of Rajim is called Panchkoshi." The Panchakoshi of Ujjain is also composed of five main places: four guards at the doors of the city and Mahakaleshvar in the centre. In the same way, Kashi contains several sets of five elements. 14 In his description of the site, Naraharinath (IP 2.1: 215) presents it as formed by a triangle of three sacred rivers, but this model is not currently present in the spirits of the inhabitants of the place who all mention five rivers and represent them also graphically if asked to draw a sketch of the pilgrimage site. 15 In the genealogy of Dullu published by Naraharinath (IP: 70-71), it is said that a junior prince of the royal family obtained as his inheritance: "the 32 flames" (battis jvālā) and "the seven sanctuaries". 16 See www.petroleumnepal.com.np. 17 It is not easy to give an account of the flames of the Panchakoshi. In Pādukā, according to the description of yogi Naraharinath published in 1956 (IP 2.1: 199-200), two flames burnt at that time, "the large flame" and the "small flame" (baḍi and choti jvālā), also called Iḍā Piṅgalā, Gaṅgā Yamunā or Candra Suryā. It should be noted that Iḍā Piṅgalā are the names of the two principal nerves of the backbone according to yogic traditions, through which passes bliss, which first reaches the navel, then the head (Dasgupta 1976: 29). Both were of different colours and with their fire, some water flowed up from mid-June to mid-March. This water called jaljvālā, "the juice of flame", was extremely holy, and was absorbed to cure stomach pains. According to Naraharinath, all the flames produced this "juice" in the past, but only those of Pādukā still did in 1956. All of them, on the other hand, produced (and still do) soot, which represents their principal prasād and also constitutes a remedy against eye illnesses. The two flames of Pādukā were carried away, along with their temple, by the river flooding in 1979 according to their priest. Five hundred metres away from there, the "flame of the soul", haṃsa jvālā used to burn. Today the temple is full of water and apparently empty, but according to Naraharinath (IP 2.1: 199), in 1956, there was a copper pipe in its middle where one could light the flame during the dry season, whereas the pipe was covered with water during the monsoon. When the inhabitants of the Panchakoshi walk towards the east along the Rudravati river, they mark their forehead with white earth when reaching Gāī Bacco "the cow and the calf", a place where two large rocks stand. They explain that from this spot onward they penetrate into a Holy Land, pavitra bhūmī, where there is, in the river bed, a god at every four fingers (cār aṅgul) and where flames can be lit here and there. Currently, further east on the bank of this river, two flames burn in Nābhisthān: the main one, (baḍijvālā or "large flame") permanently, whereas the flame of Indra must be relit regularly. Both are located inside temples. In Sīrasthān, a flame burns permanently in the main temple. According to Naraharinath (ibid.: 212), there were three during the monsoon and only one during the winter months, while its current mahant only says that its size and colour change according to the level of the river. The "flame of Kālī", kālī jvālā or "flame of the end of time", kālāgni jvālā, whose current temple lies on the opposite bank, had its former temple carried away by the river. It burned intermittently until 1990 according to the mahant, but was extinguished by the wind. It no longer burns. At a short distance, on the bank of the

inhabitants who especially enjoy lighting a flame on the water, by placing a cone-shaped leaf at the places on the rivers from which bubbles escape. However, only the flames that burn permanently are venerated. Temples were built around them, and near each of them stand many crematory grounds. Ascetics are the priests of these flames and had, until the land survey in the 1990s, vast territories allocated to their sanctuaries by the kings of the past.18 The Dullu site of royalty is thus encircled by a triple enclosure of sacred rivers, flames and land allocated to the temples. This perhaps explains its power and the fact that its sovereigns did not build fortifications around their capital,19 but only, according to the oral tradition, a fort located at the top of a small mount where the goddess Mathura Mai is venerated today.

The imperial capital thus encircled was literally placed outside the world. It was still more so if one considers that it was girded by death, to which are linked the gas flames (which are used for cremations), the cremation grounds located nearby, the rivers (where the remains of the cremated corpses are thrown), as well as by the circumambulation of the pilgrims clad in white, who walk along the limits of the Dullu kingdom for their ancestors’ salvation.

Important temples were built around three divine flames, under the Malla sovereigns, who venerated them and offered them land as some documents show. The oldest one mentioning the Panchakoshi is the first known Malla inscription, by Krā Challa, dated 1223. Then an inscription dated 1266,20 from the village of Bhushākoṭ, near Sīrasthān, mentions a jvālā, flame. But the most important

Chamgad, the flame of Lalāṭ is said "to have left its temple" during a landslide around 1910 (ibid.: 214); to its south, on the bank of the Chamgad, Naraharinath notes the presence of a ruined temple where one can light a flame located in the river nearby; he thinks that it was either the flame of the nose, or that of the eyes (ibid.: 213). Lastly, between this site and Sīrasthān, Naraharinath (ibid.: 212) mentions the presence of the flame of Sita. The two Mothers in charge of the worship of Kotilā also say that there was a flame at the foot of the mount where the current temple is located: at that time it was at the confluence of two rivers. If there once was a flame there, it was extinguished a long time ago since it is not mentioned anywhere. The change in the course of the river and the disappearance of the Brahma kuṇḍā which was at its confluence, on the other hand, are attested by all the inhabitants old enough to have observed them, before 1971. The officiants of Duṅgeśvar also recount that a flame used to burn below the temple, on the bank of the Karnali River. It is said to have been extinguished after a Sarki had killed a cow there. The same phenomenon is told concerning the sanctuary of Bahrataḍi, near Shanti bazaar. There, a yogi is said to have succeeded in relighting the flame, but had "stolen it". The priest of Swami Kartik can also show the place where a flame once burned, near the current temple, on the bank of the Karnali. And finally some people, among whom yogi Naraharinath, think that before the dust, there was a flame in Dhuleśvar. 18 The priests of the three fire temples are currently Nāth yogis whereas they are Sannyāsi in the other sanctuaries of the Panchakoshi. Locally, the Nāth say that they are the priests of the Goddess, Jvālādevi, and oppose to the Sannyāsi, whom they define as serving Shiva. This bipartition covers the local reality: Sannyāsi officiate at the temples of Dhuleśvar, Koteśvar, Duṅgeśvar and Swami kartik, the Nāth at those of Pādukā, Nābhisthān, Sirasthān and Haṃsajvālā. In the Malla inscriptions, almost all the donations are offered to Brahmans or astrologers, Joisi. However, in King Ajita Malla’s inscription dated 1299, which is located in Pādukā, one can read "...añji Nāth", which could designate an ascetic of the Nāth sect (Naraharinath IP 2.1: 201). Explicit mentions of ascetics, mahant, which I otherwise found, date from the 16th century only (from 1568 and 1582, Naraharinath IP 2.1: 123-124; 168-169). Since the recent land survey, the question of guṭhī land has not been clarified. 19 In the same way the city of Bhaktapur had no fortifications but was encircled by an imaginary line that the dead bodies should not cross. Eight sanctuaries, described thus by N. Gutschow (1999), trace this line: "Eight shrines dedicated to the Astamatrika...constitute the most powerful ritual fortification of the urban space." 20 Naraharinath (IP 2.1: 219).

document relating to these matters is without doubt an inscription dated 1358,21 written "...in the fastuous city of Durllaṅghya [ancient name of Dullu], which is extremely pure because there are the three Vaiśvānara [Agni] with many flames which burn without being fed". It states that King Pṛithvī Malla, "...having made the Hariśaṃkarī pilgrimage of Vaiśvānara22 [i.e. the peregrination of the Panchakoshi]...having made a promise with sesame and kuś grass...", offered land to an astrologer. A few years later in 1396, Saṃsār Varmā, sovereign of Dullu, describes himself as "the king close to the Vaiśvānara flames".23 And in a fragmentary text dated 1416 reporting the life of Balirāja, the king of Jumla, it is said of him: "Born in Kannauj, [having] resided at Jvālāji..."24 The importance of Dullu and the devotion of its sovereigns for the flames are also recalled in a text which, although late (1790), indicates that Jītārī Malla and Malebam25 offered as reimbursement of old debts, gifts of land to two Pādhyā Brahmans so that they perform rituals to the flames (Jvālā mukhī) of Sīrasthān, Nābhisthān and Pādukā. During the Baisi period, the local sovereigns’ devotion to the flames was maintained and after the unification Gorkhali officers offered bells in great number. The three holy places mentioned above, whose names respectively mean "the place of the head", "the place of the navel" and "the feet", evoke the presence of a divine body lying down, which supports and informs the territory of the Dullu kingdom, i.e. the centre of the Malla Empire. Curiosity at once seizes the visitor to such a strange site: to whom do these feet, this navel and this head belong? Why are they located there? And why do they burn?

In most of the answers, the body revolves around one point located at the

centre of its scattered parts: Dharmarāja’s throne or Dhuleśvar. The throne is located at the heart of the capital, near the Dullu palace. As for the Dhuleśvar temple, it is built to its north, at the top of a hill, around a hole from which smoke or dust used to emanate at regular intervals. The phenomenon is no longer in activity today, or is said to be exceptional, but the hole is still very sacred. 21 Naraharinath (IP 2.1: 69-72). 22 Vaiśvānara is an epithet of Agni, the god of fire. A passage of the Vaiśvānara purāna attests to the use of the expression Hariśaṃkarī to qualify this pilgrimage: "The sages call [the pilgrimage of the Panchakoshi of Dullu] Hariśaṃkarī yātrā. [Indeed], the celebration of the territory of the flames was told by Śiva to Hari, [then] Hari told it to Vyās..." VP 7 (6). The name is thus not a mark of religious tolerance, as stated by R. N. Pandey (1997: 542): "As the term indicates, this yātrā stood for the mutual harmony, toleration and best regards for each other’s doctrines by the Śaivaite and Vaiṣṇaite sectaries of the kṣetra." Perhaps on the other hand, the expression may have designated the eleventh day of the bright fortnight of maṅgsir, as stated by Naraharinath (1965: 721). Indeed, the gift of land by the king is made the 13th day of this month. In which case, the sovereign most probably worshipped his ancestors as is customary on the eleventh day and made the donation two days later, or had it consigned two days later. 23 "Vaiśvānara jvālākā nikaṭkā rājā", Naraharinath (IP 2.1: 106-107). 24 Naraharinath (IP 2.1: 349-352). 25 Malaya Varmā bears the title of rājā in an inscription dated 1378, and of Mahārājādhirāja in 1389. For R. Subedi (1999: 116) he reigned over Sinja under Abhayamalla’s reign, but the Dullu bards as well as the whole of the local population mention him as a great king of Dullu. On the genealogy of the Kīrtistambha of Dullu, ordered by Pṛithvī Malla in 1357, Jitārī Malla is Aśoka Calla’s successor. Aśoka Calla having at least reigned from 1255 to 1278, Jītārī Malla’s reign may have taken place at the end of the 13th century. He seems to be mentioned under the name of Jayatārī in the Gopāla vaṃśāvalī (Vajracarya and Malla 1985) a medieval chronicle of the Kathmandu Valley, which relates the raids that he led there in 1287 and 89, dates which may correspond to his reign.

The burning dismembered body

The parts of the dismembered body and the flames are systematically associated with each other, and the body is often related to death by fire. Sometimes, it is presented as that of Sati, Shiva’s wife who jumped into her father’s sacrificial hearth, and whose body was then carried throughout the world by her despairing husband until it fell to pieces on the ground, as a villager of Dullu retells:

"The eldest daughter of Parjapati, Satedevi, killed herself by jumping in a sacrificial hearth, and Mahādev walked, carrying her. The body of the goddess rotted, it fell. Flames were born from it: in Sīrasthān its head fell, in Nābhisthān its navel fell, in Pādukā its feet, in Dhuleśvar it fell into dust, it was finished."

In this short account, Dhuleśvar is not the burned body’s place of origin, but its final destination. Often, the presentation is reversed, as another villager recalls briefly:

"After five flames had emerged from Dhuleśvar, they were called Panchakoshi. The meaning of the name is that there are five [holy] places: Nābhisthān, Sīrasthān, Duṅgeśvar, Pādukā, and Bhairavī."

The body dismembered in the Panchakoshi is sometimes more closely associated with the destroying fire of which it forms a real personification, when it is presented as that of the flame born of Shiva’s third eye. It is this myth which explains the origin of the Panchakoshi in the purāṇa devoted to them, the Vaiśvānara purāṇa.26

"The gods threatened by the demons wanted Shiva to stop his meditation. They sent Kāma and Spring with this intention. Furious at being disturbed, Śiva emitted a flame from his third eye, which reduced Kāma to ashes. After that, this fire fell on the mountain of Dullu and formed three main sanctuaries: the place of the head, of the navel and of the feet. At once all the gods, the tirtha and the rivers went there to venerate the divinity called "energy of the great goddess in the form of flame", Jvālārupiṇī Mahādevīśakti."

26 This text appears as an appendix to the Himavant khaṇḍa published by yogi Naraharinath and was also published by him separately from a manuscript dated 1870 (VP: 1955). Although we do not know the date of its composition, it is certainly older than this since Amarsingh Thapa ordered a copy of it in 1805 after having conquered the territory of the west (Naraharinath IP 2.3: 386). The text still used to be copied until recently, since Marc Gaborieau brought back in 1967 a manuscript of the text dated 1956 from Dullu, which is currently in my possession. This text is presented today as a "guide" that no one recites. Documents from the 19th century indicate, by contrast, that it used to be formerly recited. Thus in an undated document (mentioning the years 82, 94 and 02: i.e. 1882, 1894 and 1902 V.S., or A.D. 1825, 1837 and 1845) a Brahman says: "when your father arrived and obtained Dullu... [we] agreed to make the recitation of the Vaiśvānara purāṇa ... we made the recitation so that your glory grows by the effect of the dharma of the holy places of Agni of the Pañcakośi ..." (Naraharinath 1966: 593).

The flames are also associated with the body of a Nāg coiled in a cavity near Dhuleśvar, both in the oral traditions and in the Jvālā purāṇa27 that follows the celebration of the Panchakoshi in the Vaiśvānara purāṇa.

"From the hole of Dhuleśvar, emerged a Nāg and after its head had fallen in Sīrasthān, its navel in Nābhisthān, its feet in Pādukā, its body in Bhairavī, the flames of Agni appeared there", explains a villager.

As for the Jvālā purāna, it reports this episode as follows:

"Formerly king Suvarṇākhya [=Suvarṇā ?] of the Magadha country went on pilgrimage and offered a great quantity of clarified butter to Agni. But while he was making this offering, the splendour of Agni weakened. Seeing this, the king returned to his palace. When the king said: "O Agni, consume the butter that I offered to you in sacrifice", Brahma appeared. He addressed Agni whose splendour was low: "Agni, here is Arjun, make a prayer, ask to eat the Khāṃḍava forest. Go there and consume this forest. There is a Nāg named Candrāvali. Having killed it, take its grease and eat it, then your prayer will be answered". Having heard the words of Brahma, [Agni] took the form of an old and weak Brahman, went to Hastinapur and addressed thus to Arjun: "O lord, provide for my meal". Having heard the words of the Brahman, [Arjun] went with Agni to the Khāṃḍava forest. As soon as Arjun arrived, the Nāg named Caṃdrāvali, who had entered a cave of the Khāṃḍava forest and was hidden in it, was frightened and left his hiding-place. Seeing the frightened snake, which had thus exposed itself, [Arjun] placed an arrow on his bow and sliced its tail. From its body flowed grease, and, to eat it, Agni started to burn again. As Agni’s heat was unbearable, it scattered and decreased in the mountain called Dullu."

As shown above, the flames are also closely associated with the Pandava, the five brother heroes of the Mahābhārata.28 In the preceding myth, it is Agni himself who leads them to Dullu, but more commonly they are said to have reached this place after having lost their kingdom and been condemned to exile:

"While they were living in retreat in the forest here, at the place where they had meditated on Bhagvati, they erected five temples and five pillars. Panchakoshi, which also means that Bhagvati, satisfied with the five brothers, appeared in the form of five Bhairawi Kali flames and granted them the boon which enabled them to recover their kingdom", explains K. Bhandari of Dullu.

As for the abbot (mahant) of Pādukā, he heard that formerly: "a snake king had conquered all the region. The Pandava, condemned to twelve years of exile,

27 VP 1955: 55-56. 28 This association is old as attested by a text from King Bhupā Narāin Sāha which reads: "Formerly at the Satya era, as a flame had appeared in Pādukā ... Paṃcakosi, Arjun built a temple to the Mother and donated fields to offer incense and lights...". The text is dated 1...28 V.S. and the gap is filled with a 6 noted in brackets by Naraharinath (IP 2.1: 142): i.e. A.D. 1571, but it is more likely to be a 9, i.e. A.D. 1871, since another text of this king (of Kalikot) dated A. D. 1865 was published elsewhere by Naraharinath (IP 2.3: 400-401).

arrived in Dullu where the snake king fought with them. The five brothers, victorious, sliced the snake king in pieces: its head fell in Sīrasthān, its navel in Nābhisthān, its feet in Pādukā, its dust in Dhuleśvar, its ears in Kotilā, its bowels in Dungeśvar: thus five holy places (pañcisthān) were created."

The multiplicity of the myths of origin of the dismembered body and the flames is not only remarkable but also well known locally.29 They form the fragments of a much more developed mythical account, which combines in the same story and in a coherent way, almost all the disjoined elements presented up to now, except the myth of Sati devi.

"My name is Upendra Prasād Nepāl, I am resident of ward 1 of the locality of Nepā, district of Dailekh Dullu. I am the humārā Brahman30 of Pādukā, of the flame over there. Question: How was Pādukā born? Upendra: It is the flame of Shiva’s eye, which destroyed Kāmadeva. This flame sought to burn all the three worlds, so the gods said: "this flame is afflicting us" and to pacify it, the three hundred and thirty million gods made a ball and sent it in the sky. Shiva was standing in meditation on Kailash and the ball, reaching the middle of the sky, exploded into a thousand pieces. I am going to sing you the silog that tells that: When he was disturbed in his meditation, anger entered his spirit, a flame came out of his forehead, like electricity, Kāma was transformed into ashes. At Dullu, in the Karnali, Siva threw him... Indra, affected by the crime of Birtāsor Brahman,31 went to hide in Lake Manosarvar. Then Naüs, a man, a rishi, believed that Indra had died, because he had left to hide. He became king [in his place] and took Indrayani for queen. Indra, on his side, cut the murder of the Brahman into four parts. Naüs wanted to sleep with Indrayani and she asked guru Brihaspati what she had to do. He advised her to answer that she had a fast [to respect] for one year and that she would marry him at the end of this year. Brihaspati then organised a saptāhā ceremony with Indrayani to destroy Indra’s murder of the Brahman, then they performed a navāhā ceremony and, at the end of the nine days, Bhagvati appeared to Indrayani and told her: "Indra is hidden in lake Manosarvar, holding a lotus stem". The goddess went to the lake, found her husband and told him all about king Naüs. Indra advised her to tell Naüs to come in the wedding procession, carried by the seven sages, Sapta Rishi. He was placed in the palanquin, but the departure was delayed because the Brahmans did not want to carry it. Finally they arrived late and king Naüs was in great anger.32 With his foot, he struck Rishi Durvasya, who cast this spell on him in return: "you will be a snake on the earth." But the Rishi

29 As underlined by Mahendra Prasad Rijal, pāṭhaki Brahman (Brahman appointed to the readings) at the temple of Sīrasthān: "Some say that it is called Śristhān because there is the head of a Nāg. Others say that when the body of Satyadevi fell [in the fire], Śivaji walked, carrying it, and that her head fell there. There are other legends, but those are the two main stories." 30 Brahman appointed to the fire sacrifice, hom. 31 That is to say the demon Vṛitra, or Vṛitrāsura, often represented as a giant snake controlling water. 32 In a similar account told by one of the two Mothers of Kotilā, Naüs got angry because he had been jolted on the way by the rishis who carried his palanquin, when they stepped aside to avoid walking on insects.

added, "the Pandava will be born in the company of Dharmaraj at the Dvapar era, and Krishna Bhagvan will also be born. When you receive the vision of the Pandava, you will be delivered." After he had thus spoken, the king took on the shape of a snake, fell in Dullu and lived in a hole. This hole is located near Dhuleśvar, at the place called Kāṭhebaḍi. It is still there today, and to prevent calves, buffaloes and children from falling into it, a small Shivalaya was built on the spot. ... After that, the flames burned and a king named Sorpan Nākhyā arrived from Rajasthan because he knew that flames were burning and wanted to make a sacrifice (yagya), a sacrifice to the fire (hum), in the vicinity. He started to make the hum, but Agni could not eat the barley in the form of homan. As it could not eat the form, the flame took on a human form, the shape of a woman, and went to find Brahma. She addressed Brahma: "I have little energy to eat, energy is necessary for me to eat. My energy is weak, give me some, give me something to eat. As I do not have food, my energy does not grow". Brahma answered her: "Go, in human form, to Hastinapur where the Pandava are and come back with Bhim and Arjun. The nāg called Candrabali was formerly king Naüs. He became a snake in the Durlabha country because of Rishi Durvasya’s curse. Lead the Pandava in the Durlabha country and have this snake killed by Arjun’s arrow. You will eat its grease and reside at the Panchakosi until the end of the Kali age, until the end of the world." As Brahma had thus spoken, the flame in human form, in the form of a woman, went over there and brought back Arjun [in Durlabha = Dullu]. He killed the snake with his arrow. It is said in our religious texts that it is the grease of the Candrāvalī snake which burns. But the scientists say that it is gas... . It is the same thing, the name is different: they are two different names for the same thing, but that was created at the time of the Pandava. After having killed the snake, the Pandava went to seek people of Hastinapur and settled them here. They reigned some time here. After that, Malla kings reigned on the Dullu throne: Malai Bamma, Ashu Malla, I do not know their names well."

One recognises in this account two famous myths of the Mahābhārata: the episode of the snake king appears in book III and the story of Nahusa in paradise in book V. As is often the case, the myth is localised and displays some peculiarities. The most notable one is the delivery of the snake: in the Mahābhārata, it finds the way to paradise at the end of the interrogatory to which it subjects Yudhisthira, which remained famous for the definition of the Brahman given at this occasion by the king of Dharma. In Dullu, both in the account of the jvālā purāṇa and oral myths, the snake king is cut by Arjun’s arrow and remains present forever in the kingdom’s ground, since the flames so far feed on its grease. The link between the snake king, the flames and the territory hardly appears in the Mahābhārata; nothing is said about its mortal remains.33 In Dullu, on the other hand, this component is essential: the flames and the Nāg define various territories that we shall now examine.

We have encountered three to five flames and three to five body parts in the various accounts. The dismembered body consists of a variable number of parts, the minimum being the three principal ones presented at the beginning: the

33 However, the link between Indra, Nahus, and the fire seems extremely old since one finds even passages of the Ṛg veda establishing relations between them. Thus Anthem VI dedicated to Agni presents him as the winner of the Nahus tribe. For references to the dismemberment of a giant snake by Indra, see J. Fontenrose (1980: 196).

head, the navel and the feet. The eyes, the nose and the forehead are also clearly localised in places which are today disaffected, but whose name and situation leave no place for ambiguity: Lalāṭeśvar ("the lord of the forehead"), Cakṣur Jvālā ("the flame of the eyes") and Nāsikā ("the nose") are indeed located very near the "head". Other sites are identified with the breast, entrails, ears, mouth and soul. Upendra describes these places thus:

"A little away from Sīrasthān, in Lalāt, which means "forehead", the forehead fell. In Koṭilā, the entrails fell. In Dungeśvar, the part of the chest fell: it is Dudheśvar,34 from Dudheśvar was born the name Dungeśvar and then in Nābhīsthān, the navel fell and in Pādukā, the feet fell. And there is also Haṃsa jvālā: it is near Pādukā. There fell Haṃsa jvālā ["the flame of the soul"]. Currently, in Haṃsa jvālā,35 there is no flame. Today in Pādukā also, because of a flood [there are no more]. There were two flames; they were turned towards the north. Today they do not burn any more: they would burn if there were no water because one hears a noise there that makes gud, gud. ...At Sirasthān, and opposite [the temple], on the other side of the river, on the bank, two flames burn. The opposite flame is called Kālāgni jvālā ["the flame of the fire of Time"], it is small, and the one that is on this side is called Śrī jvālā. And then a little to the west from there, there is Nābhisthān. There, there are two flames: one in the east—Nābhi jvālā—and in the west, there is a Rudrabās tree and near it: Indra Jvālā. ...In Dhuleśvar, is the remainder, śeṣmeṣ, of Śrī jvālā: this hole is called Dhuleśvar36 and [dust] does not raise any more, but at certain times only. Formerly, each day this dust blew, dust similar to ash. The name of Dhuleśvar means that this dust flies away, this is why it is called Dhuleśvar. This dust, now, only the lucky ones can see it, otherwise it cannot be seen. To the north of Dhuleśvar, there is the river called Bhairavī and there, it is also a Panchakoshi site. In Bhairavī, there are ponds (kuṇḍa) and a sanctuary with Bhairavī devi, a waterfall and a cliff..."

The Panchakoshi territory is thus marked by a multitude of remarkable sites, which form as many stages for pilgrims. They fill up the sacred space delimited by the rivers and draw the dismembered body’s position. Two features are noticeable: the different parts obviously refer to a human body, not a snake and this body has kept its structure roughly speaking, in spite of its decomposition.

This territory of the flames, where a female body lies, recalls the altar of the Vedic fire sacrifice. In both cases, the ritual space encloses a human body, which is feminine37 and lies west to east, the head directed to the east; in both cases also, the fire of the east is the most sacred, while those of the south are devalued: they do not represent very noble parts of the body in the Panchakoshi and are associated with the demonic enemies in the Vedic ceremony, which is described by Heesterman (1993) as the ritual setting of a conflict. This aspect is not completely absent in the Panchakoshi, since the devotion to one of the southern sanctuaries has a political dimension and is said to bring the stability of the reign in the Jvālā purāna. But in the Panchakoshi, the most conflictual place seems to be the most 34 Dudheśvar means lord of the milk, or of the breasts, dudh. 35 According to the mahant of Pādukā now in charge of its worship (since the two sanctuaries are located nearby), until 1981 there was a different mahant for the two sanctuaries. 36 Dhuleśvar = lord of the dust, dhulo. 37 The female character of the body is marked by the presence of its breasts in Duṅgeśvar.

sacred fire, the head, which has depended since the 15th century on the related but rival kingdom of Dailekh, although it is located in Dullu. In fact, the territory defined from the Panchakoshi is sometimes much more vast than its fluvial perimeter, as Upendra tells:

"In this place (of Dhuleśvar), there was a snake. Its name is written in our Jvālā purāna, Vaiśvānara purāna. This Nāg is called Candrāvali or Ardhulī, because it had half of its body in a hole and its other half was going to eat. Where was its head going to eat? In the east in the kingdom of Jajarkot, where it was going to eat, there is a sanctuary dedicated to Bhairav. It was also going to eat in Jumlā Caubhān, up to Candanāth. And to the west up to Doti Dipayal and in the southern part, it was going to eat up to Baḍcaur, Cisāpānī, Nepālganj, Bāgeśvari, but its tail remained in Dullu. Why was this place called Dullu? Because there was this hole, dulo, where the Nāg lived. It kept one half in its hole and half outside: one half in paradise, one half underground."

The gigantic snake king turns on itself around the capital and while the lower part of its body remains fixed there, its head reaches precise places at the four cardinal points. The idea that a Nāg is located in the ground and revolves on itself is widespread in Nepal. The divine reptile, it is said, turns according to the seasons, such as the hand of a giant dial punctuating time, but moving in the reverse direction. Like the stars and planets, moreover, astrologers determine its exact position at a given time. Villagers regularly consult them on this subject in order to dig foundations without wounding the Nāg, and more often, to plough. The first time peasants plough in central Nepal,38 they proceed with a rite of massacre and dismemberment in seven pieces of the chthonian snake with their plough. They must start by splitting its head, otherwise they may die. The astrologers indicate which direction it lies in. In Dullu, such a rite is not practised, but each time peasants avoid ploughing parallel or perpendicular to the reptile’s body. According to an astrologer from Dullu, the Nāg turns counter-clockwise in a regular way, spending three months the head directed towards each cardinal direction.39 The similarities between the Dullu royal myth and the rite of ploughing in central Nepal are numerous, with one difference: in the first case it is a founding event which forever fixed a dismembered reptilian body in the territory of the capital, whereas the rite of ploughing follows a logic of perpetual motion, punctuated by two phenomena (the continuous gyratory movement of the snake on the one hand, and its scattering and slow reconstitution, on the other). It is perhaps not fortuitous that on the site where the mythical snake was dismembered, peasants do not proceed with this act each spring but simply avoid confronting its body, which they approach only diagonally.

In the Dullu version of the gyratory snake, the reptile is composed of two opposite halves, as its name indicates; Ardhuli, formed on the root ardha meaning "half". Such as a cosmic axis, the giant snake connects the sky to the hell and places the imperial capital as the navel of the universe. Its immobile lower part is sunk into the earth, at the heart of the capital and reaches the abyssal zone; the

38 For the description of this rite, see M. Lecomte-Tilouine (1993: 138-141). 39 The east from bhadau to kārtik, the north from maṅgsir to māgh, the west from phāgun to baisākh and the south from jaiṭh to sāun.

mobile upper part reaches paradise, and wanders throughout the kingdom in search of food. Upendra does not say what nourishes the giant snake, but our imagination would have already compensated for it: human beings, of course. The reptile’s hunting territory, bounded at its four cardinal points,40 seems to form an image of the area controlled from Dullu. Indeed independent powers rose up precisely at these places at the fall of the Malla Empire and powerful lords probably already reigned there during its tutelage. The eastern boundary point, Dipayal, was the capital of the Doti kingdom, and the first territory to revolt against the Malla suzerainty, since Niraya Pāla declared himself king of the kings in 1352. After a short period when it fell again under the imperial branch, this kingdom became definitively independent in 1387 under King Nāg Malla. As for Jumla and Jajarkot, they became independent at the same time, under the command of Jakti Singh for the latter, of Medini Varmā and Bālirāja for the former. The myth recalls a political organisation dating back to this troubled period.41 Thereafter indeed, the Dullu kingdom in whose centre the snake’s hole is located, had for principal rival a more immediate neighbour, the kingdom of Dailekh, which is not mentioned here, and as its main religious and cultural reference, the kingdom of Acham,42 which is not mentioned either. If there is no doubt that the myth of the Panchakoshi deals with royalty, it does not refer precisely to any known historical fact; nevertheless one can easily imagine that the remarkable pilgrimage complex has been used from its early history for political purposes.

The territory encompassed by the myth of the ignited and dismembered body sometimes delimits a vaster territory, as Upendra notes:

"The part of the mouth fell in Muktināth, that of the ear in Kāngrā. The remainder of the body fell in Dailekh and manifested itself here and there. The mouth part of the flame thrown by Shiva went to Muktināth and fell there, it is called "the lord of the mouth" and the part of the ears (kān) fell in Himachal Pradesh, in Kankarā kīllā. Over there, there is also a flame. In Muktināth also there is one of them."

The myth reported by Upendra attaches two new and very distant flames43 to Dullu, such as two terminals placed at its two cardinal points along the Himalayan range. One can certainly view it as a will to gather in the same account similar sites, where pilgrims venerate the same wonder. Devotion to the eternal flames over very long distances is remarkably illustrated by Colonel Stewart (1897) who

40 By contrast with the three other boundary points, the southern limit is vague, as indicated by the multiplicity of the toponyms used for evoking it. 41 In a similar way, Yogi Naraharinath proposes to read the myth of the fight between Arjun and the Nāg as that of king Nāgarāja of Jumla and king Arjuna Malla of Dhuleśvar (Dullu). Two problems invalidate this reading: no king named Arjuna Malla is known in the Malla imperial dynasty and in the myth, the Nāg king resides at Dullu, not Jumla. 42 The divinities, the Brahmans and the bards of Dullu, as well as the Rāskoṭī royal family are all from Acham. Until the 19th century, when the kingdom of Dullu needed new officiants, one went there to seek them. 43 Sir J. J. Modi (1926) notes about Kangra: "Talking to the Hindus there, they call this Small Jwaalaajee and stated that their Big Jwaalaajee is in Baku, Azerbaizaan." This author quotes an old description of the fire temple of Baku, which suggests that its gas flame was used for cremation: "A Russian traveller, Beresine, relates that the temple has the form of 5 sides. In the middle...there was a little well, a long tube-like hole and the naphta [fire] came out of it...near the temple is a large pit. Over it is a great stove. On the stove all the dead are burnt."

met pilgrims coming from Himachal Pradesh at the fire temple of Baku located in Azerbaijan: "Hindu visitors come there after having visited the temple of Jawala Mukhi of the district of Kangra." The priests of the huge Baku gas flame were Indian Hindus as well, until the exploitation of the natural resources and the transformation of the Fire temple into a wax museum. A most interesting clue showing that pilgrimage routes ritually connected the natural gas flames is a Nepali map of central Asia (Gole 1992), which appears to be a road map to the Great Flame of Baku. The distances between each city and between them and Nepal are indicated in Nepali. In the legends, the two terminal points are Nepal to the East and the Great Flame of Baku to the West, whereas the map only starts with Kashmir onwards (showing that the Himalayan range was supposedly known up to that point).

One can also recognise in the large territory of the flames the delimitation of a cultural entity, distinguished (from central Nepal) by specific features: among these one may mention the oracular forms of religion, the epic tradition, the use of a dental swing-plough. The territory of the f lames

The cultural "markers" of the area of flames can be linked to the group of population that characterises it, the Khas. It is thus tempting to bind the Khas cultural entity to the political structure whose centre was based in Dullu, the Malla Empire. In fact, a certain number of clues can be brought together to support this link: the most striking is the use of Khasiya, in the Gopāla vaṃśāvali, to designate the soldiers coming from the Malla empire to raid the Kathmandu Valley. An inscription dated 1278, found in Bodhgaya, designates the Malla king Aśoka Calla, as: "...the mahārājādhirāj of the Khas country of the one hundred and twenty-five thousand mounts, Savālākh parvat".44 Lastly, the term gosāĩ, which seems to refer to the princes in the Malla inscriptions,45 currently has a very specific use in western Nepal: it is a term of address reserved exclusively to Ksetri boys, while small Thakuri are called rautelā. In far western Nepal and eastern Kumaon, gosāĩ has a more derogatory meaning since it designates the illegitimate children of Rajput father and Khasiya or Bhotiya mother. The current use of this term tends to reinforce the assumption that the Malla dynasty was of Ksetri or Khas rank, the two terms being synonymous in this area. Now, to come back to the flames, there is no doubt that Muktinath was controlled by the Malla Empire, since two inscriptions from the Thagwai Monastery (dated 1321 and 1390) attest that regions located east of Muktinath were included in it or at least depended on it. Also, the Mustang kingdom where the Muktinath sanctuary is located, remained Jumla’s vassal up to its annexation by the Gorkhalis at the end of the 18th century. The importance of Muktinath for the monarchs of western Nepal during the medieval period, is indicated by a surprising travel account by King Gaganiraja, written in 1493, describing how he went to Muktinath from his kingdom located at the north of Jumla, in today’s district of Mugu.46

44 The Siwalik range was named after these 125,000 mounts. 45 And until the conquest in the inscriptions from Doti. 46 Nepal Yatri (1982a).

As for the western extension of the Malla’s power, the Gopeshwar inscriptions show that it included Garhwal, while an epic collected near Dullu describes a military expedition of king Jitārī Malla (end of 13th century) up to Sirmaur, in Himachal Pradesh.47 The sovereign of Sirmaur is presented as a vassal king paying tribute to the Malla emperor, and trying to gain his independence. It is thus not so whimsical to include Kangra in a territory related to Dullu. It is also possible that the western limit formed by the flame of Kangra results from a later period, since it is also the final point of the Gorkhali conquest at the end of the 18th century. There, the Gorkhalis marked their passage by donating a large bell to the Jwalamukhi temple, where the famous gas flames burn. Locally, the flames of Kangra are associated with the tongue of the Goddess, but also sometimes with the ears of Sati Devi, as in the Dullu account.48

The Panchakoshi-s ’ spatial organisation

The Panchakoshi not only form the basis for spatial organisations conveyed through the mythical accounts of its origin, but more fundamentally give order to the whole of regional religious life. Three distinct levels may be distinguished: the area from which pilgrims come, the territories of those who are ritually attached to the different Panchakoshi sanctuaries, and finally the intra fluvios holy space.

The Panchakoshi pilgrimage is mainly undertaken for the salvation of ancestors. Certain months are more favourable, such as māgh when there are greater merits. According to priests and villagers, the great majority of pilgrims come from Acham and Doti districts located to the west of the Panchakoshi, and from Bardiya and Surkhet districts to its south, and we are unaware of the reasons why this is so. The pilgrims come in small groups of between two to five or six men. They are easily recognisable at a distance for they are clothed in white, carry walking sticks and have their hair shaved. They belong to all caste groups and circumambulate the Panchakoshi for their ancestors’ salvation, especially those who manifest themselves by sending misfortunes.

Each site has its particular characteristics and its virtues for the pilgrims. The main ones are thus described in the Vaiśvānara Purāṇa:

"Dhuleśvar is the central region (madhyapradeś) of the territory of the flames (jvālākṣetra), there are all the gods. Next to the Vaiśvānara flame that gives liberation, is Pādukā. To the north of Pādukā, runs the Bhairavī river that erases sins ...Below Shivasthān is the flame named amṛtjvālā ("the flame of ambrosia"). It is divine and cures leprosy (mahārog). At this place, one sees the "flame of Indra" (Indrajvālā), which is known on earth to give wisdom and powers. The Nābhisthān of Jvālādevī is famous. There, all the dead beings find liberation and join Shiva. Below Nābhisthān, there is a holy cliff (pavitra bhir, bhṛgusthān). Those who commit suicide there obtain liberation. To the east of the cliff, on the bank of the river, stands Kedāreśvar. Those who honour him are not reborn. In the east of Kedāreśvar, and a little below, there are three ponds: Brahma, Viṣṇu and Śiva kuṇḍa, which erase the murder of a Brahman.

47 Published by Nepal Yatri (1984: 239-248). See Lecomte-Tilouine 2004 for a full translation in French and the introduction to the second part of this volume for some excerpts in English. 48 For information on this temple, see K. Erndl (1993).

In Agnikund, one sees three flames: the hovan offerings, the pujā and ablutions at these flames bring liberation to men. In order to fulfil and complete the fruits of the pilgrimage, it is necessary to make an offering to Kṣetrapāl. Each step from the house for the Vaiśvānara pilgrimage is equivalent to the fruits of a horse sacrifice, aśvamedha. Those who make the Panchakoshi of Vaiśvānarakṣetra pilgrimage are released from any debt towards their father and mother as long as the moon, the sun and Indra last. The man who worships his ancestors in the territory of the flames of Dullu allows for 10 generations before him, himself included, and 10 after him, himself included, to cross. Those who have died by falling, by cattle, by eating poison, by being bitten by a snake, will obtain liberation by worshipping Jvālākṣetra. Even ants and grasshoppers, etc. find the way to paradise there. Ignorant people of this world do not go to this territory, which brings "the crossing" (i.e. liberation). All castes can go on a pilgrimage to the Vaiśvānarakṣetra: Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras, and Candalas."

The pilgrimage thus aims at facilitating "the crossing" for men, whether dead or alive, and offers cliffs for ritual suicide to those wishing to benefit from its effects immediately. The pilgrims must theoretically perform a total of sixteen śrāddha on their way,49 however the majority of them are unaware of all these stages and just mark the five principal ones which constitute the Panchakoshi: Dhuleśvar, Nābhisthān, Sīrasthān, Dungeśvar, and Pādukā. Furthermore the order may vary somewhat according to the sources and people questioned.50 At each sanctuary, pilgrims receive the vision of the divinity, the ṭikā frontal mark and the prasād leftovers of the god, in exchange for a gift or a donation to the temple.51 A peak in frequentation is observed on the eleventh day of each fortnight, when Brahmans await customers at the main sites to perform their ritual to the ancestors. The majority of the pilgrims come on the advice of mediums, dhāmi, who have indicated one of their ancestors as the cause of their misfortune and diagnosed the pilgrimage as a remedy.

A certain number of medium-oracles from Acham and Doti also make the pilgrimage, carrying in their hands an image of the god they incarnate, generally a bell. On arrival at each site, they proceed with ablutions and wash their divinity, then enter the sanctuary, pay homage to the god and receive its ṭikā from the priest. This tour of the mediums does not aim at the confirmation of their status, but represents a precondition to this act and a purification.

49 According to Dirgha Prasad Pandeya, it is in the following order: 1. Dhuleśvar, 2.Brahma kuṇḍa, 3. Rudra liṅga, 4. Pārvatī ko murti, 5. Nābhisthān, 6. Lalat, 7. Kotilā, 8. Bināyak, 9. Mālikā, 10. Bahra taḍi, 11. Duṅgeśvar, 12. Lāmaduvalā, 13. Pādukā, 14. Bhairavā, 15. Rudravati, Padmavati, 16. Bān Gaṅgā. 50 In fact the starting point of the pilgrimage is generally presented as being the one where one stands. For the inhabitants of Dullu, the pilgrimage starts with the throne of Dharmaraj, for the mahant of Dhuleśvar, with Dhuleśvar, for that of Pādukā, it starts nearby at the confluence of Swāmi kārtik and then Pādukā, for the Mothers of Kotilā, with Kotilā, for the mahant of Sīrasthān, with Kotilā and then Sīrasthān. Only the mahant of the navel, Nābhisthān, truly feels to be in the centre of the pilgrimage circuit. The entrance point varies in fact according to the direction from where one arrives, but can also be indicated by the medium who prescribes the circumambulation; no-one, however, explains why the god who expresses himself by his oracle sometimes imposes this requirement. 51 The usual gift hardly exceeds ten rupees and when it does, it is then consigned in a register in which one can see that some devotees make large donations of up to several thousand rupees.

The flames venerated in the Panchakoshi temples are closely related to death, since they are used to consecrate the corpses and to light the pyres of the surrounding population. Far from being soiled by such a contact, they are endowed with a power of purification that nothing can affect. The Vaiśvānara purāṇa convinces its readers of this, with the story of a depraved Brahman woman condemned to errancy or eternal rebirth, but who was carried away to paradise after a bird of prey seized a small piece of the flesh of her corpse, and dropped it by chance in the fire of Jvālāji.52 The sacred flames are used to light pyres of all the caste groups, including the untouchables.53 When a flame is no longer alight, as in Duṅgeśvar, Kotilā and more recently in Pādukā, it is replaced by the fire of the dhunī hearth maintained by the ascetics of each sacred place, which, in theory at least, burns permanently.

The Nāg, death, and the flames are inextricably bound: Kamara Bika, resident of Tallo Duṅgeśvar and blacksmith by caste, tells how the snake used to eat, in particular, men who ventured towards the bottom of the valleys in funerary processions up to the cremation grounds, until a blacksmith had the idea of placing a huge oil lamp on the head of the first member of one of these processions. When the monster absorbed the man, it caught fire, and was then cut into pieces by the other men. In gratitude for their ingenuity, the blacksmiths are said to have consequently received the privilege to play the conch in front of their funerary processions, as only the groups of pure caste used to do. The crematory nature of the flames is expressed in a still more striking way in the villagers’ imaginations and ritual practices. Indeed, according to the Matwali Chetris of Jumla who cross the Panchakoshi during their seasonal migration,54 it is imperative that a man be burned each day in Sīrasthān, and if this does not occur, officiants instead burn a human-like dummy made of kuś grass. When questioned on this subject, the mahant of Pādukā, Nābhisthān and Sīrasthān confirmed the veracity of this statement, but the three of them say that the practice ceased a few years ago. This strange offering recalls the myth of the grease of the snake king in combustion: in both cases, the sacred flames liberate living beings, but are also nourished by their corporal substances. They thus live literally upon death and preserve an analogy with the man-eating monster which produced them. However their power of destruction is much wider since no one living on their territory can escape it, except their priests, who are buried in a state of meditation, as ascetics. On a still larger scale, one of them, located opposite "the head", is Kālagni, the fire of time, which ignites the universe at the end of the world. This belt of death recalls the spatial organisation of the Newar towns, similarly surrounded (Gutschow and Kölver 1975).

However the Dullu cremation sites do not only mark the limits of the sacred perimeter, but also represent the focal centres of territories defined by their population’s ritual link to the different flames. These places of cremation define a 52 According to its summary by J. Parry (1994: 27), this myth appears in the Kashi mahima prakash, Chapter 22. 53 The insensitivity of the flames as well as of all the sanctuaries of the Panchakoshi to pollution is also shown by the fact that the low castes can penetrate the enclosure of the sanctuaries, and also reside, sleep or eat there. A particular inn is sometimes reserved for them, as in Nābhisthān, or the ground floor of the inn, as in Sīrasthān. They cannot, however, enter the temples, but white barbarians are cordially invited to do so. 54 Information: Satya Shrestha-Schipper.

true funerary geography of the area. The Panchakoshi is thus divided into five territories whose inhabitants sanctify their dead with the same flame and proceed with their cremation in its vicinity. But the limits of these territories of cremation are not restricted to the Panchakoshi area and exceed not only its perimeter, but also that of the Dullu kingdom. The extension of these territories clearly shows the unit that formerly formed the kingdoms of Dullu and Dailekh. While the "feet" and the "navel" are the cremation sites for the villagers (and the king) of Dullu, the "head" is used by the inhabitants (and the king) of Dailekh.

This unity shown by the religious territories is undoubtedly inherited from a time when it did not overlap distinct political entities: the imperial period and perhaps shortly after its fall, a time when Dullu and Dailekh were under the same ruler and formed a single entity. In fact, their unity was still strong at the time of the Gorkhali conquest; oral traditions present the king of Dailekh as the Dullu king’s younger brother.55 The fact that the Dullu king continued to venerate and sponsor the "head", Sīrasthān, after an independent power attached to this shrine had emerged in Dailekh, and the splitting of the kingdom in two, may explain the enigmatic inscription of Saṃsār Varmā Rāval dated 1396.56 Addressing the villagers of Bhushāṃ, a village still located inside Dullu but included in the guṭhi of Sīrasthān (which is the cremation place for the inhabitants and the king of Dailekh), the king tells them: "Even if it is the dharma of the enemy, it should be protected as our own, because only the enemy is enemy, the dharma is not the enemy of anybody." In times of agreement, the sovereigns of Dullu and Dailekh made gifts together to this sanctuary and consigned the donation in the same common inscription, such as the one dated 156857 where King Pratāp Sāhi and Prince Māna Sāhi of Dullu made a donation together with King Saṃgrām Sāhi of Belāspur (i.e. Dailekh) to the mahant of Sīrasthān.

A mirror game between kings and ascetics

The territorial units attached to each sanctuary are referred to as their "areas", ilāka, or defined from the point of view of the individuals who name the one on which they depend: "our sanctuary", āphno asthān. In addition to cremation, the attachment to one of these territories is marked by an annual tax of the first crops of the two main agricultural products: rice and wheat. Their collection is organised by the priests of each sanctuary, the mahant mainly, who go from house to house after each harvest, in the month of kārtik for rice and in jeṭh for wheat.58 It is thus not a voluntary offering which the devotees bring to the god themselves, but a constraining levy, taken at their home. The houses enjoying guṭhī land must offer a pāthī (or four litres) of each cereal, the others, a quantity varying between a handle and two mānā (one litre). 55 In short, it is said that the Gorkhali troops first tried to take Dailekh, without success, because the sovereign was the devotee of a particularly powerful Bhairav. Then, local traitors advised them to start by making an alliance with the king of Dullu, the Dailekh king’s elder brother. When the king of Dailekh saw his brother at the side of the enemies, he bowed to his feet and told him that he could just take back the kingdom that he had given him because he refused to fight against him. The King of Dailekh is said to then have entered his Bhairav temple where he disappeared forever. 56 Naraharinath (IP 2.1: 106-107). 57 Naraharinath (IP 2.1: 123-124). 58 The priests affirm that they have not taken anything these two last years (2001 and 2002) because of the Maoists’ opposition. Villagers claim that it was done as usual.

The levies on the beneficiaries of guṭhi land are officially recognised by the government and thus incorporated within jurisdictions, but levies on other households are not "legal" and are simply custom. Moreover, blood sacrifices offered in exchange for a wish (bākhā kabul) are practised on Tuesdays and Saturdays at the sanctuaries of dependence to the afflicting gods59 hosted in each of them. Lastly, the people attached to the Panchakoshi cremation sites must imperatively circumambulate it one year after their father or mother’s death. They can also undertake this pilgrimage at the time of the funeral, to deposit the remains of their parents’ bones at the various holy places.

All the mediums residing inside the territories dependent on the Panchakoshi are obliged to carry out this pilgrimage the first year after being recognised as such. But the regulations for the mediums vary. The most famous incarnating divinity of the Panchakoshi is Dare Maṣṭā, the "Maṣṭā with fangs" of Rawatkot. Its two mediums must circumambulate the Panchakoshi, carrying the god’s lighted oil lamp. By contrast with the circumambulation, which is compulsory, their confirmation (chāp-bido) by a superior medium (in their case, the one of Buḍu Maṣṭā) is only supplementary. According to a famous medium of this god, who belongs to the same Thapa lineage as the mediums of Rawatkot, but to a branch having emigrated to Surkhet, a new medium of Dāre Maṣṭā must first make the Panchakoshi pilgrimage, then go to Gaya, Kanshi, Gangotri, Badri, Kedarnath, and Haridwar. Finally, he must go to Mugu district in order to receive his confirmation at the Buḍu Maṣṭā sanctuary. Thereafter he has the obligation to carry out a total of seven pilgrimages to the Panchakoshi and Kashi (Benares).

The tour of the Panchakoshi is done annually by some mediums, such as the dhāmi of Bhairav from Dhansur. This man says that after his nomination as dhāmi, he first circumambulated the Panchakoshi, then went on a pilgrimage to Haridwar. Now, he enters into a trance each year on the fifth day of Dasain and immediately departs in this state to circumambulate the five main Panchakoshi sanctuaries. Back on the eighth day, he holds a public consultation of oracles in Dhansur.60

These practices show how the pilgrimage to Hindu shrines form an encompassing framework for oracular practices in western Nepal, while they were often described as an alternative to Hinduism. In Dullu, the possibility of being recognised as a medium depends on it, more than on the chāp bido, or confirmation from a superior dhāmi.

The ritual obligations of those who are not only attached to a Panchakoshi cremation site but also live intra fluvios, consist of all those quoted previously, to which is added the impossibility of leaving their home for a pilgrimage, in particular to Kashi61 (the "other Panchakoshi" for the inhabitants of Dullu), without first circumambulating their own Panchakoshi.

According to villagers, the territorial division related to the cremation sites was undertaken between the gods themselves, at a time when only they reigned

59 i.e. Bhairav, Kāl Sāini, and Thangyal. 60 Information recorded by F. Bernède. 61 The pilgrimage to Kashi is not new for the inhabitants of the Panchakoshi. In a series of documents dated from the 19th century, a man explains that he no longer has a specimen of the Bhāgvat because his brother left for Kashi with it, and died there (Naraharinath 1966: 591).

on earth and protecting people. They preserve this role today, despite the presence of other authorities.62

The main sanctuaries, such as those of the three flames, appear in fact in many respects as small capitals each reigning over its own territory. They are not only tax-collecting centres of a customary levy on the first crops, but were also transformed one day a year into a Court of Justice called dharma sabbhā, or religious council.63 The jimuvāl and mukhiyā headmen64 as well as the eminent persons (bhārdār) of the god’s jurisdiction gathered on this day with the officiants of the sanctuary. The head of the monastery, the mahant, chaired the council.65 The council, in the presence of the guilty ones, judged the inhabitants of the territory for their offences and fixed their fines. When the religious council was unable to find an agreement or when the offence was too serious, the guilty person was locked up for a few days in a jail located in the inn of the sanctuary, then led to the district court in Dailekh. Some weapons were stored, which were used to escort captives or tax collectors. In addition to this prison, similar to capitals, the main Panchakoshi sanctuaries possessed a granary called dharma bhakārī, "religious granary", the contents of which were distributed to the population of the dependent territory in times of famine. Furthermore, the mahant, whether Nāth or Sannyāsi, male or female, is addressed by the title of mahārāja, "great king" and sits on a throne on which no one else may sit.

Small religious capitals thus surrounded the royal capital of Dullu and the territory of the kingdom was subdivided into several independent divine "areas". More precisely, from the local viewpoint, the kingdom was superimposed on a former spatial division of divine territories, which it included, but also respected.

The royal capital of Dullu was itself transformed into a site similar to the capital-sanctuaries, when the royal palace hosted the holy flame.66 It was changed 62 A very concrete example of the protective role of the divinity on its territory can be read in a text addressed to the central government in 1828 by a Giri mahant. He describes how the villagers of Rahap (district of Acham), who depend on the Panchakoshi sanctuary of Tallo Dungeśvar, complained to him that they had been attacked by tigers since the pujā to the god stopped, because the temple incomes were given to the soldiers of the government stationed locally (Naraharinath I.P. 2.2: 82). 63 This assembly took place in the month of māgh at Pādukā, in phāgun at Sīrasthān. 64 Dullu remained an independent kingdom within the kingdom of Nepal until 1960. The Muluki Ain of 2017 V.S. (1960) however granted the last sovereign the privilege to keep his title until his death. Tax collection was different in the Dullu kingdom. The jimuvāl and mukhiyā tax collectors used to give the receipts to the king of Dullu at the end of the month of caitra, after having taken 15% for themselves. The King then used to carry the sum to the tax office in Palpa before the end of the next month. The last king received annually the sum of 28,000 rupees from central government and enjoyed half of the taxes on the newly cultivated land in his kingdom. 65 Each fire temple is kept by an abbot, mahant, an adult Nāth considered as the main officiant for exterior relations. Until recently, there was also a pir, a young initiated boy, less than twelve years old, considered as the main priest of the sanctuary, several Brahmans (a minimum of two: a humāra and a pāṭhaki), a cook, an intendant, odd-job men and musicians. The mahant and the pir are locally distinguished as follows: "the pīr is installed on the throne, he is established by the mahant. Outside it is the mahant who is important, but inside, it is the pīr. The pīr must be a child who knows nothing about women. One cannot be pīr after the age of 12. The pīr is of great importance. In these sanctuaries, it is necessary to have one’s ear split and that is called pīr ("pain"). While entering the Nāth sect, one can be pīr only by splitting one’s ears, whatever his caste." Let us note that in the Panchakoshi sanctuaries occupied by Sannyāsi, the phenomenon is similar: the pujāri is a little virgin boy, the mahant is an adult. 66 The specific nature of the sacred flames, compared to those which are produced by man, is underlined by the tradition according to which when one of them dies out, it can be relit only with fire from another sacred flame. Currently, the mahant may relight them with a lighter, as I saw him doing, but this gesture, which was seen by my assistant, was mentioned by him repeatedly as proof that the

into a temple for the crematory fire, at Dasain, the most crucial time of the year. At the time of this festival, which celebrates the re-creation of the world and of the institution of royalty, a man from the line of the royal treasurers, the Bhandari, was transformed into an ascetic and dressed in their manner. He used to leave the capital in this attire on the evening of the sixth day of the festival and proceed to the sanctuary of Pādukā, accompanied by a Brahman. He spent the night there and received the eternal flame in the early morning, from the hands of the chief of the monastery, via a large wick. This jogī kṣetri as he is called, would then take the flame to the capital. Reaching its limit, marked by Mathura Mai’s sanctuary, a delegation from the palace carrying the sabre of the sovereign’s tutelary goddess came to meet the flame holder. There, a goat sacrifice was offered, after which the flame was solemnly led to the sanctuary where the king was fasting. He indeed left his usual position on the first day of the festival, to settle "at the height of the ground", in a small building next to the palace. Assisted by Brahmans, he acted there as an ascetic, fasting and praying.67 The Pādukā cremation flame was then placed in the royal dhunī, or ascetic fire, temporarily transforming the palace into a fire temple, or more exactly bringing the king out of his palace as a renouncer-devotee of the cremation fire.

The kind of inter-regnum of Dasain was placed under the flame of the feet, and the other period of inter-regnum corresponding to the sovereign’s death was centred on the flame of the navel where the royal cremation was performed. Recreated by the feet,68 the sovereign went up in smoke at the navel, but this bipolarity undoubtedly dates back to the division between Dullu and Dailekh and is hardly mentioned by the inhabitants of Dullu, who present their capital and their sovereign as a focal point surrounded from all sides, that is to say in their terms, "in the four directions", by the sacred fires and their ascetics, as if in a permanent position of tapas, austerities.69

The focality of the palace was reaffirmed on the tenth day of Dasain, when the ascetics and officiants of all the Panchakoshi holy places converged there, carrying the prasād of the divinity they served, to offer them to the ascetic king and to receive from his hand the ṭikā frontal mark, as well as some money. The king was thus acting as the unique patron of the whole Panchakoshi. In this way, the capital, and more particularly the royal palace, its centre, became the focus of the sacred sites depending on it, at the end of its temporal transformation into a fire temple and of the sovereign into an ascetic. The rest of the time, the king was

flames are not divine, but the result of a natural phenomenon. The Panchakoshi holy fire is used to relight faraway ascetic fires, such as the one of Vaijanath, in Acham, located three days’ walk away to the west. In a more striking manner, Dullu is the place of origin of the fire in a ritual song from Doti. It describes how a Brahman, after twelve years of search, finally found Agni in Dullu. The Brahman promised the god to introduce dharmic rules on earth to convince him to go down from heavenly Dullu to the dark and sinful human world (Jayaraj Pant 1998: 622-631). 67 Contrary to the usual rules, the king did not perform any blood sacrifice, which was done by his ministers, kāji, his "brothers". 68 Though the specific relation of the sovereign with the navel is not surprising, the one he maintains with the feet is less clear. It should be said, however, that the flame of the feet was by far the largest of all. Yogi Naraharinath (IP 2.1: 199-200) wrote in 1956 that it measured one foot between kārtik and māgh, and a hand, 4 (widths of) fingers, the rest of the year. This flame, he added, was so large that even if one venerated it by throwing grain on it, it did not die out. The fact that gas flames grow and change colour with the rise of water is underlined by everyone today. 69 The most revered ascetic practice is to stand in the sun, surrounded by four fires in each direction.

himself part of this religious entity, since it was necessary for any pilgrim wishing his pilgrimage to be "complete" to receive the vision of the king,70 after circumambulation of the Panchakoshi.

On the other hand, the king himself had to circumambulate it, at least at the beginning of his reign. Thus the first Dulāl sovereign walked around the Panchakoshi before sitting in its middle on the throne. After having conquered all the neighbours’ territories, Malai Vamma "...reached Dungeśvar in the venerable paṅcakośī, made his ablutions at ḍhuṃ tirtha, went to the flames of the navel, of the head, and of the feet, went to Mālikā where he offered a fire sacrifice and then arrived in Dullu where he obtained kingship."71

Elder villagers recount that the last kings of Dullu carried out this pilgrimage just after their coronation, not before it.72 In both cases, to be placed in the centre implies dependence from the periphery: not only for the king but also for his intra fluvios subjects, who cannot leave their perimeter for a ritual purpose before having circumambulated it. Since there is no longer a sovereign, the pilgrims come to Dullu to the "throne of Dharmarāja", a platform located near the palace where, it is said, the king used to render justice.73

No one exactly knows to whom the epithet of Dharmarāja refers. There are three possibilities: Yama, the king of death, Yudhisthira, the king of justice who established the dharmic royalty in Dullu or the historical local sovereigns. These three figures are in fact placed in such a continuity that the question is perhaps meaningless: Yama is indeed the first of the mortals and the model of the kings,74 Yudhisthira possessed his qualities since he was his son, and the Dulāl kings presented themselves as the latter’s heirs. In this way, death somehow not only surrounded the capital in the form of the cremation fires, but also reigned in its centre, when placed there for a few days in the form of a cremation flame and more permanently in the person of the King of Dharma, whose terrestrial reign is the control of death.

70 It is perhaps significant in this respect, that the king of Dullu Saṃsār Varmā Rāval presented himself as "a flame in the world plunged in the darkness" in an inscription dated 1396 (Naraharinath IP 2.1: 106-107). 71 "Dulālvaṃśāvalī", (Naraharinath, IP: 70). 72 It is always delicate to rely on oral traditions, which may comprise more errors than written reports, but one can also explain this difference in behaviour in the following way: the chronicle reports the accession to the throne of the founding king of the Dulāl dynasty. As such, he presents first himself as a devotee in order to obtain temporal power from the gods, whereas the kings of Dullu remembered by the villagers had to go to Kathmandu to obtain their royal title from the king of the kings. On his return, the sovereign was awaited by his people at the border of his kingdom where a procession set off towards the palace. The king was riding a horse, followed by his queen carried in a palanquin. On arrival at the palace, he took a seat on a silver-plated throne, between two silver vases. He received his abhiṣek, but the most important act was the crowning, done by the queen mother or the queen. It is similar in the Kumaoni principality of Askot where the rajvār also receive their title from the hands of the queen. There, however, the "queen" must be from the generation above the future sovereign. Since they became vassals, the source of the Dullu kings’ legitimacy became external to their kingdom and the pilgrimage was no longer a pre-requisite, but a mere confirmation. 73 This throne remains the most enigmatic site of the Panchakoshi in my eyes. This platform flanked by old statues and fragments of statues, has great importance locally. After the destruction of the palace of Dullu by the Maoists in 2002, the inhabitants reconstructed and enlarged the throne considerably, as if to preserve a symbolic seat of royalty. 74 On the nature of Yama, cf. Charles Malamoud (2002), who shows that Yama and Mṛtyu (Death) belong to the class of the Kshatriyas.

The sanctuaries as capitals of ritual territories, and the ascetics as the lords of harvests and judges responded to the capital as the seat of Death, the palace as a fire temple, and the king as an ascetic and a pilgrim in his own kingdom. But in this reciprocal game, the relation to death introduced an imbalance. Indeed, contrary to the king who was himself a sacrificial offering to the eternal fire, when cremated at the navel, the ascetics were (and still are) not affected by death nor offered to the flames, since they are said to be buried in meditation, in the vicinity of the flames. Master of the death of his subjects, but mortal himself, in order to ensure his perpetuation, the king reflected himself in the immortal ascetics without offspring, guardians of the crematory fires. These immortals are furthermore in charge of the celebration of the dead kings, for they organise annually the śrāddha, or ancestor worship, of Dharmarāja, the figure that embodies them all. This celebration unifies the population of the territory since all the inhabitants share a common meal at "their" temple on this occasion.

This mirror game evokes the moving and reflective configuration of a kaleidoscope, where a small number of elements sometimes meet, sometimes deviate and sometimes seem to be reversed, underlining the great complexity and the subtlety of the relations between the sacred places and the royal capital. Exchanging their roles periodically, it is here the ascetic-king couple which organises the world, from their world-apart.

The "configuration" of the Dullu kingship, as an illustration of the model drawn by Jean-Claude Galey (1991-92: 212) about Garhwal, revolves around the three components distinguished by this author: the seat of royalty, the royal domain and the religious "crossing", which "associate the king in his palace with a throne, preside over the destiny of a kingdom which takes the form of a sacrificial area, before even marking it as a world of earthly limits and illimitable potential."

The Panchakoshi have fallen into progressive decrepitude accelerated by the end of local kingship in the 1960s, of guṭhī land in the 1990s and more recently the Maobadi civil war. Several practices have ceased and facts have been forgotten, but their recent ethno-history, as fragmentary as it may appear, enables us to catch a glimpse of a few elements indicating the role they were attributed within the kingdom.

The most striking feature of the Panchakoshi is the crematory nature and use of the eternal holy flames, which, to my knowledge, is not reported about other sites where gas flames are venerated. This use may have been a later invention, but certainly not a very recent one because today the Nepalese are surprised when they hear about it. The Panchakoshi complex has thus certainly been tantric for a long time, and we may recall that the Malla kings used to claim themselves followers of Hevajra. Renouncement was also a strong value for them, since the first inscription of the dynasty is a huge land donation of a whole newly conquered territory, to a Hindu temple.75 Later inscriptions show that land gifts were a very important part of their religious life, as were pilgrimages, and the great king Pṛithvī Malla is described as a monk (bhikṣu) on the Kīrtistambha inscription.

75 The power of Khas kings therefore does not rely on the ownership of the land, but on its alienation, sometimes complete and initial, as in the case of Bali rājā, but generally partial, as in Panchakoshi. This alienation confers merit and a particular power, making the Khas king a kind of renouncer.

A final detour will lead us to India, as the reader may have been struck by the similarities between the Panchakoshi of Dullu and the Panchakroshi of Kashi. These two territories circumscribed by rivers comprise five cremation grounds, five tirtha, and form in both cases a divine and yogic body.76 Both places are outside time: just as Kashi is located in timelessness, remaining in the Satya Age, it is said that the Panchakoshi will not be destroyed at the end of the world. More importantly both places are the seat of destruction, pralaya. Kashi is the permanent place of the "personal" end of the world, nitya pralaya, which represents cremation for man, while Dullu is the seat of the fire which destroys the universe at each end of time. This difference infers that Kashi is sacred because bodies are burnt there,77 while in the Panchakoshi of Dullu, we can say that it is the reverse: it is holy because the destructive fire burns and therefore needs fuel. In Dullu, the eternal fire of cremation permanently awaits its oblations of bodies to maintain its energy, which will one day grow in such a formidable way that it will annihilate the universe. In Kashi, vegetal effigies of imperfect or missing bodies are burnt so that the individuals may benefit from cremation in this holy place, while in Dullu, it is the flames that are lacking their human fuel, which is then replaced by a fictitious body if a single day passes without death.

Somehow, because the crematory fire burns there by itself, and because it is almost impossible to distinguish the figures of the King of Death from human kings, it can be said that the sovereign power which reigns in Dullu is Death itself, personified in various supports.

76 Parry (1994: 17) notes that Kashi in popular thought forms Shiva’s body, with its head in the south at Asi, its loins at Manikarnika and its feet at Varuna, to the north. In Dullu, the flames are the bodily parts of the personification of Shiva’s third eye’s fire, but its orientation is east/west and not south/north as in Kashi. 77 Parry (1994: 32): "...Kashi is sacred precisely because" people come to be cremated there, "for it is death and cremation that keep the city at the navel of the universe yet outside space and time."