Pasupatiksetra (A Historical Inventory)

DETAILS : 

• Author : Axel Michaels & Govinda Tandon
  
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Himal Kitab Pvt. Lt., Nepal
  
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ 1 January 2017
  
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
  
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 120 pages
  
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9937597358
  
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9937597357
  
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 450 g

ABOUT THE BOOK

Pasupatiksetra: A Historical Inventory, co-authored by the eminent Indologist Axel Michaels and Nepali scholar Govinda Tandon, is a vital historical and architectural survey published by Himal Books, Nepal. This collaborative volume serves as a critical spatial and structural introduction to Deopatan and the Pashupatikshetra, the sacred domain surrounding the legendary Pashupatinath Temple in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal.

The primary objective of the book is to preserve an accurate ethnographic and architectural baseline of one of Hinduism's most sacred pilgrimage sites. Because the authors’ previous exhaustive research works on the complex were published separately in German and Nepali, this joint English edition was specifically designed to make their breakthrough findings accessible to a global audience. The text functions as a snapshot of the early 1990s, capturing the religious topography, shrine coordinates, and traditional structures just before massive modern urbanizations and the interventions of the Pashupati Area Development Trust Master Plan altered the landscape.

Rather than relying purely on dense historical speculation, the book is highly valued for its exact field documentation. It provides readers with meticulous spatial maps, processional route diagrams, and black-and-white photographs documenting the locations of specific statues, subsidiary shrines, and minor temples. The text maps out how the physical architecture relates directly to the living ritual obligations of the space, including seasonal festivals and ancestral funeral processions along the Bagmati River. It stands as an invaluable reference archival tool for architectural historians, South Asian archeologists, and cultural anthropologists studying the preservation of continuous sacred heritage zones.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Axel Michaels is a globally renowned German Indologist and Professor of Classical Indology at Heidelberg University. He has spent over four decades conducting rigorous fieldwork across South Asia, specializing in the history of Hinduism, legal texts of ancient India, and the social rituals of Nepal. He is highly celebrated for his landmark theoretical books, including Hinduism: Past and Present, and his leadership in massive documentation projects like the Digital Archive of Nepalese Manuscripts.

Dr. Govinda Tandon is a distinguished Nepali historian, cultural expert, and former Member Secretary of the Pashupati Area Development Trust (PADT). He is a definitive local authority on the Kathmandu Valley's religious heritage, having published a massive, authoritative two-volume historical study on the Pashupati Area. His collaborative partnership with Axel Michaels combines rigorous Western spatial methodology with deep, inherited local insights into the complex’s internal priestly traditions, administrative history, and structural evolutions.