By Aashish Mishra, Kathmandu/Baburam Sharma
Dolakha Mar. 10: Dolakha is preparing to host the historic Harisiddhi Dance next month for the first time in nearly a century.
The dance, also known as Jala Pyakha – Jala being the colloquial name for Harisiddhi and Pyakha meaning dance in Nepal Bhasa – will be staged on April 4 at the special Chakra Dabali platform of Bahir Tole, lower Dolakha.
“This five-day dance will be performed in our city after the establishment of sisterly relations between Bhimeshwor Municipality and Lalitpur Metropolitan City,” informed Bharat Bahadur KC, Mayor of Bhimeshwor. “We have already agreed upon the details and we will formally become sister cities on Sunday.”
Harisiddhi Dance is widely held to be the oldest masked dance of the country, believed to have been started more than 2,400 years ago by King Bikramaditya. As published in the 2005 book ‘Nepal Mandalka Mukundo Naach,’ Bikramaditya brought his guardian goddess Harisiddhi in an urn when he came to Nepal and established her in the Nepal Valley. To honour the deity, who is also worshipped as Trishakti and in the form of Maheshwori, he also started an annual sacred performance which today is called the Harisiddhi Dance.
In Harisiddhi, Lalitpur, the dance is performed twice every year on the occasions of Yomari Purnima and Phagu Purnima.
But every 12 years, a ‘renewal’ ritual is performed when the masks and costumes are repaired and new priests are trained. As part of this ritual, the dance used to be taken to various settlements in Lalitpur, Kantipur, Bhaktapur, Dhulikhel, Panauti and Pharping.
According to the Devmala Chronicles, King Amar Malla began taking the dance to Dolakha from Nepal Sambat 680 (approximately 1560 AD) as a part of this ritual.
American researcher Dr. Linda Iltis, while studying the culture of Dolakha, presented an assumption that this tradition died about 84 years ago. However, people related to the dance and locals of both Harisiddhi and Bhimeshwor believe it has been longer.
Building on Iltis’s work, cultural activists Kirtan Joshi and Rajesh Bajracharya along with advocate Rajesh Maharjan have started looking into the history of the Harisiddhi Dance in Dolakha.
“Dr. Iltis’s work has reinvigorated everyone,” said Shanta Krishna Shrestha, a culture campaigner in Dolakha. “Further studies should be carried out.”
Shrestha also claimed that the city of Dolakha predated the establishment of Kathmandu and believed that this could be proven by the Harisiddhi Dance.
Meanwhile, for this year’s dance, a team of 100 people including 29 of the goddess’s priests are scheduled to arrive from Lalitpur, Bhimeshwor Municipality informed. “We expect it to cost Rs. 1.5 million to stage the dance. The municipality will bear some of the costs while the rest will be raised via donations from locals,” Mayor KC said.
The priests of Lalitpur’s Harisiddhi Temple had earlier visited Bhimeshwor on February 19 and had met with Mayor KC to discuss reviving the Dolakha leg of the dance. At the meeting, the Mayor had also informed of the formation of a 51-member committee to organise the dance at Bahir Tole.
Harisiddhi Dance is comprised of various parts dedicated to various gods, demons and sages including the eight mother goddesses (Asta Matrika), Balmiki, Bhardwaj, Ganesh, Riddhi, Siddhi, Kaumari, Agni, Ram, Marich, Betal, Kuber, Sugreev and King Bikramaditya too.The Rising Nepal/from
