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Explore Culture in Nepal. Curated by the locals. Find the hidden secrets that even the locals don't know.
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Carved to Play: The Woodworking Behind Nepal’s Madal and Folk Drums
Walk through a village square in the hills of Nepal during Dashain or Tihar, and you will almost certainly hear a Madal before you see one. That deep, resonant thump…
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Bhaktapur Pottery Square: Inside Nepal’s Oldest Ceramics Community
Walk into a quiet courtyard in the old city of Bhaktapur and you will hear it before you see it:…
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Paubha: The Sacred Newar Painting That Predates and Inspired Tibetan Thangka
Paubha is the traditional sacred scroll painting of Nepal’s Newar community, an art form scholars widely credit as a direct…
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Lakhey Dance: The Masked Guardian Spirit That Takes Over Kathmandu During Indra Jatra
For a few days each September, a fierce, red-faced masked figure moves through the narrow streets of Kathmandu’s old city,…
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Clay for the Gods: Terracotta Idols, Lamps, and Ritual Pots
Introduction In Bhaktapur’s Pottery Square, the ground itself tells you where you are before your eyes do. Rows of wet…
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Carving the Lakhe Mask: The Wooden Masks Behind Nepal’s Street Dances
Introduction When drums start pounding through the narrow streets of Kathmandu during Indra Jatra, crowds part quickly for a towering,…
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Carving the Chariots: The Woodwork Behind Kathmandu’s Jatra Processions
Once a year, the narrow streets of Patan fill with a sound that has nothing to do with engines: hundreds…
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Nepal’s Postage Stamps: 140+ Years of Miniature National Illustration
A single one-anna stamp from 1881, printed on a press Jang Bahadur Rana had personally shipped over from England, marks…
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Bells, Vajra, and Dorje: The Metalwork of Nepal’s Ritual Objects
Walk through the narrow lanes of Patan or Bhaktapur early in the morning and you will hear it before you…
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Aripan: The Rice-Paste Drawings That Have to Be Made Before Any Mithila Ritual Can Begin
In Nepal’s Mithila region, no wedding, hair-cutting ceremony, or puja is considered properly begun until a woman has knelt on…
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Before a Single Grain of Sand: The Precise Geometry Monks Draw First
Long before any colour appears, a sand mandala begins as pure geometry, chalk-coated string snapped across a bare table or…
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Kwanmol: One More of the Nine Newar Scripts Still Waiting for Its Revival
Nepal Bhasa, the Newar language, has been written in nine closely related scripts over a thousand years. Ranjana has started…
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Bhujimol: The Other Ornamental Newar Script Nobody Talks About
Ranjana gets carved onto prayer wheels and painted across scroll paintings; Prachalit still shows up in newspaper body text. Bhujimol,…
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Prachalit: The Everyday Newar Script Living in Ranjana’s Ornamental Shadow
While Ranjana gets the attention for its sweeping, ornamental curves, most everyday Newar writing over the centuries was actually done…
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Ranjana: The Newar Script So Beautiful It Became Nepal’s Standard Calligraphy
Ranjana, whose name itself means delightful, is widely considered Nepal’s standard calligraphic script, its ornate symmetry and sweeping curves carved…
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How a Small Kathmandu Gallery Grew Into Nepal’s Biggest Contemporary Art Festival
In 1987, Sangeeta Thapa and artist Shashikala Tiwari opened Siddhartha Art Gallery on Pratap Bhawan Kantipath, a single exhibition space…
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