THE UNIQUE FEATURES OF NEWAR BUDDHISMvations of old shrines after earthquakes or the ravages of time tend to be simpli-
fied structures or 'modem' biihiis.
Whatever the present style, there are three essential elements to a vihiira: the
shrine of the Buddha, a caitya and a tantric shrine.
The image of the Buddha, known as the kwiipii-dya in Newari, is the centre
of the non-tantric worship of the community of the vihiira and his shrine is the
one shrine which is open to the public. The current term kwiipiidya is a contrac-
tion of kwii/koca-piila-deva which is found in earlier inscriptions. This in tum
appears to be a Newari variant of the Sanskrit term ko!jfhapiila which is found in
one fourteenth century inscription and is used as a synonym for the Buddha.^6
Ko$thapiila means a guard, watchman or storekeeper and hence the current tra-
dition that the term means the 'guardian of the sangha'. In Patan one also finds
the term kwiipii iiju, the 'guardian grandfather'.
In most vihiiras the kwiipii-dya is an image of the Buddha sitting in vajriisana
and showing the earth touching gesture. This is also the iconographic form of
the transcendent Buddha Ak~obhya. Some claim that the image is always the
historical Sakyamuni Buddha and not the transcendent Buddha Ak~obhya; but in
some cases we have inscriptions, put up at the time of the consecration of the
image, which clearly state that the image is Ak~obhya (especially in Kath-
mandu). Over fifty percent of the kwiipii-dya images are of this form of the
Buddha. The next most popular image is a standing Buddha figure showing the
boon-granting gesture with the right hand and with the left hand raised to the
shoulder level and gathering up the ends of the robe in an elegant sweep. This is
a popular form of the Buddha in Nepal: very ancient and certainly pre-tantric.
Nepali scholars identify this gesture as the visvavyiikarar:za-mudrii, and popular
devotion identifies the image as Maitreya^7 • There is no justification for this hand
posture (mudrii) or for the identification of the image as Maitreya in standard
iconographic texts, but it is certainly common in the oral tradition of the Valley.^8
Some of the images are one of the other transcendent Buddhas, PadmapiiiJ.i-
Lokesvara or Maitreya. All of the kwiipii-dya images are non-tantric deities
except for one image in Bhaktapur of Mahavairocana. The images face north,
east or west. The favoured direction is north, with over half of the shrines ori-
ented to that direction; east and west are about equally divided. The shrine never
faces south as this is considered inauspicious - south is the direction of Y ama-
riija, the lord of death and the underworld.
In the courtyard of every vihiira is a caitya. The caitya or stiipa has from the
earliest days been the specific symbol of a Buddhist institution. Many of these
caityas are small stone monuments only about three feet high, and most of them
are not over six feet. A few vihiiras, however, such as Sigha Baha, Yatakha
Biiha and Mahabii Baha in Kathmandu, have been built round large stiipas.
Especially in Kathmandu the caitya in the courtyard of the biihii is often given a
lime whitewash with the result that after several centuries it appears as a shape-
less white mound or white spire. Popular folk devotion calls such caityas 'Asoka
Caityas' in the popular belief that they were all erected by the Emperor Asoka.