MATRIKAS, Sundarijal (Cave of the)

Herbert Daniel Gebauer - 06/01/2018

A small temple cave (note 1), rather a rock shelter, sacred to the -ashta matrikas- (a group of mother goddesses) represented by stones (WIESNER 1976: 242), consists of a horizontally protruding triangular slab of stone sheltering an area of four by four metres. SITUATION: This cave of the matrikas (matrka) lies near Sundarijal at the foot of Shivapuri Dara, the hill where the trek to Helambu starts, and immediately above the banks of the juvenile Bagmati river (which has shaped picturesque erosion forms into the phyllitic schists here) and a short distance below the confluence with the Bagmati but above the -falls- marked on Schneider's Kathmandu Valley map.A small temple cave (note 1), rather a rock shelter, sacred to the -ashta matrikas- (a group of mother goddesses) represented by stones (WIESNER 1976: 242), consists of a horizontally protruding triangular slab of stone sheltering an area of four by four metres. SITUATION: This cave of the matrikas (matrka) lies near Sundarijal at the foot of Shivapuri Dara, the hill where the trek to Helambu starts, and immediately above the banks of the juvenile Bagmati river (which has shaped picturesque erosion forms into the phyllitic schists here) and a short distance below the confluence with the Bagmati but above the -falls- marked on Schneider's Kathmandu Valley map.