Spiritual but thrilling cable car trip to Manakamana

• HB Kham

Manakamana cable car

Though tiny in topography, the country of Nepal is rich in cultural diversity and natural landscape.  It has plentiful high hills, cliffs, spiritual places to visit.

Nepal is also profusely endowed with numerous religious Buddhist and Hindu temples across the country.  Some of these religious places and temples are worth visiting during your spiritual trip. In other words, Nepal is also known as the country of rituals and virtues or a paradise of gods and goddesses.

Manakamna is one of the Hindu worshiped temples located near the Kurintar area of Chitwan district where you can ride a cable car to make your trekking, expedition or a spiritual trip to Manakamana temple a reality in your lifetime.

Manakamana temple

The name of this temple is made up of two simple words. That is the word “Man” which stands for a “human heart” and “Kamana” implies the meaning of fulfilling wishes or desires at this temple of Manakamana. It means any devotee who goes to this Manakamana temple and earnestly asks for any boon from the deity of this temple, such devotee’s wishes or aspirations are fulfilled in course of time.

Many people who visited this temple and got their wishes fulfilled as expected earlier have spread the good message and fame about this temple that has goaded and guided other devotees and visitors to visit this temple frequently in course of their lives.

The temple of Manakamana situated in the Gorkha district of Nepal has remained famous among the inland people and outside since the era of the 17th century during the regime of King Ram Shah.

Legend:

A legend has it that late King Ram Shah’s queen was obsessed with a divine power which was only known to Lakhan Thapa, a devout follower of the divine power in the kingdom.

One day the king himself declared that his queen was the embodiment of the divine power and Lakhan Thapa was a reincarnation of lion.

Soon after this incident, the king died and the queen in order to cremate her husband by following the tradition of “Sati” system under which she must undergo self-immolation or be burnt to ashes along with the dead body of her husband completed the last funeral rituals of her husband.

The queen before self-immolation had told Lakhan Thapa that she would reincarnate in any appearance in the kingdom in the future.

After six months when a farmer was plowing his filed happened to chop a stone. Amazingly, the farmer saw blood and milk flowing from the stone. Lakhan Thapa came to know about this strange incident.  He immediately took possession of the sacred stone and started the worshiping and ritual performance of the stone found in that way. The flow of blood and milk from the stone subsequently stopped flowing.

A temple was erected at the site where the stone was found and worshipped.  Since then this temple came to be known as Manakamana temple as it fulfills the wishes of the people.

Since the priest of this Manakamana temple at the beginning was Lakhan Thapa, all priests who are assigned the responsibilities to worship at this temple till today are considered to be the reincarnation of the same  Lakhan Thapa from a Magar community of Gorkha district.