Kastamandap Temple

According to legend, this 12th century pagoda is one of the oldest buildings in Kathmandu and the oldest surviving wooden building in the world. Such a long life of the temple is explained by the fact that it is built from one trunk of a sacred and very hard lard tree, from the branches of which its reduced copy is built - the temple of Simha Sattal, located nearby.

Initially, the building served as a shelter for merchants, pilgrims and travelers passing along the Indo-Tibetan trade route. There were many such primitive hotels in Kathmandu, as trade caravans passing from India to Tibet and back were supposed to winter in the Kathmandu valley in anticipation of the spring opening of the passes. Then, in the early period of the Shah dynasty (1379), Kastamandap was converted into a temple dedicated to the protector and patron of this dynasty, the holy guru Gorakhnath, whose statue is in the center of the building. Followers of the cult of the saint lived in Kastamandap until 1966 and left the building only in connection with the beginning of reconstruction. Nepalese historians believe that the name of the temple Kastamandap (house of wood) gave the name of the capital of Nepal Kathmandu.