Ethnohistory or Social Reality? Architecture and Monasticism of Naka Bahi (Lalitpur, Nepal)
- Suyog PrajapatiDetails
16 August 2026/३१ साउन २०८३ (आइतबार, दिउँसो ३ बजे)
Research Seminar Series
Ethnohistory or Social Reality? Architecture and Monasticism of Naka Bahi (Lalitpur, Nepal)
Suyog Prajapati, PhD Candidate, History of Art, University of Michigan, USA
Abstract:
An outstanding wooden art is located at Naka Bahi, a 14th century Buddhist monastery in Lalitpur, the fourth largest city of Nepal. Carved in low relief, this thirty-feet long narrative frieze illustrates 21 episodes from the Buddha’s life. Of these, the scenes showing Prince Siddhartha’s renunciation from household life and attainment of Buddhahood form exemplary narratives, which the Bahi’s householder monastics reenact and aspire to emulate. Further, Shakya and Vajracharya communities within and outside Nepal continue to draw inspiration from the Buddha’s many biographies, to reinforce their monastic vows and praxes at open courtyards, sanctum spaces, and esoteric shrines of their respective monasteries. Such inimitable ties between historic places, sacred artifacts, and social functions lead to a poignant question: Does an active religious site ‘signal’ its ethnohistory or a social reality? In arguing that Naka Bahi’s biographical woodcarvings served as ritual allegories for monastic practices, I propose a spatial relationship between the narratives’ sequence and intended viewers. Such an approach builds upon ethnohistorical methodologies that treat pre-modern architecture as being polysemic (Meister 1995), culturally implicated (Dirks 1987), and historically reflexive (Appadurai 1981). In doing so, this paper aims to show how built spaces in Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley drew upon pre-existing visual vocabulary and textual sources to articulate and sustain Newar Buddhism’s distinct form of monasticism.
About the Speaker:
Suyog Prajapati is a PhD candidate in the Department of the History of Art at the University of Michigan. His dissertation, titled, Monasticism and Urbanism in the Kathmandu Valley, traces the role of Buddhist monastic architecture and material culture in fostering the extraordinary urban growth alongside Newar Buddhism in the Himalayan Valley. He has held internships and research assistantships at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, the Huntington Archive of Buddhist and Asian Art, and the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art. Suyog earned his MA in Buddhist Studies from Tribhuvan University and MA in Art History from Rutgers University, where he was a Fulbright Fellow (2019–21). As a keen advocate for cultural heritage preservation, he has been passionately documenting endangered monuments in Nepal since 2007.