Woodcut of the restored nine-story temple. Photo courtesy of the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage
Nepalese craftsmen repair wooden elements on the nine-story temple. Photo courtesy of the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage
Restored nine-story temple complex (northeast corner). Photo courtesy of the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage
Standing on the highest floor of Basanta Burta in Kathmandu, Nepal, you can see large white clouds floating on the ridge in the distance, and the Swayambunat Temple at the top of the mountain looks very clear. Looking down, vendors set up lively stalls in Durbar Square, and schoolchildren in snow-white school uniforms run out of the alleys to frolic. A fresh breeze blew through, and the wind chimes on the eaves clanged crisply.
Durbar Square, along with six other groups of historical sites and complexes, constitutes the Kathmandu Valley Cultural Heritage Site, Nepal's first World Heritage Site. Among them, Basanta Pur Tower is about 32 meters high and is called the "nine-story temple". On April 25, 2015, the local area was hit by a strong earthquake of 8.1 magnitude, and the entire nine-story temple complex was severely damaged, and the upper three floors of the temple completely collapsed. After the Nepalese government requested assistance from the Chinese government, China immediately sent an expert team to Nepal to carry out relevant restoration work. After several years of hard work by China's "cultural relics doctors", the maintenance task of the nine-story temple complex itself has been successfully completed, and the project has passed the mid-term acceptance in December 2022, revitalizing Nepal's cultural treasures.
The temple complex was badly damaged
The nine-story temple complex covers an area of about 1,300 square meters, and the existing construction area is about 5,600 square meters, which was built in the 17th and 18th centuries AD, and is the only palace building in Nepal that lives in the form of stupas. A tower is built at each of the four corners of the courtyard, with load-bearing brick walls, wooden eaves, and very exquisite wooden doors and windows. In particular, the diagonal braces used to support the cornices or roofs are carved with various Hindu gods, which have great artistic and historical value. Six months after the earthquake, the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage assisted Nepal team to conduct a feasibility study for the first time. At that time, Durbar Square was covered with ruins, broken components were scattered all over the place, and exquisite woodcarved statues of gods could be faintly seen in the ruins. The staff who experienced the earthquake told us: "With a huge roar and smoke and dust, we watched the upper three floors of the nine-story temple collapse into the courtyard, and our hearts ached. ”
During its investigation, the Chinese team found that about 550 square meters of local buildings, including the seven to nine floors of the southwest corner tower and the six floors of the northeast corner tower, had completely collapsed. The southeast corner tower flashed crookedly in the direction of the main road as a whole, with a maximum inclination of 170 mm, which was in serious danger; 80% of the walls have different degrees of deformation and cracking, and more than 10,000 wooden components are scattered and damaged. At the same time, the building also had problems such as foundation settlement and poor drainage.
In August 2017, the "Nine-Story Temple Restoration Project of Durbar Square in Kathmandu, Nepal", assisted by the Chinese government, managed by the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Ancient Buildings Protection, and undertaken by the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage as the overall restoration task, officially started under the guidance of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China. This is China's first large-scale cultural relics aid project in Nepal.
Post-earthquake repair "urgent and dangerous"
The post-earthquake restoration of the nine-story temple complex can be summed up in four words: "urgent, difficult and dangerous". "Urgent" is that each rainstorm will cause new damage, and only by speeding up the repair process as much as possible can the damage to the building caused by the stormy weather be minimized; The "difficulty" lies in the serious earthquake damage of the overall building, and it is difficult to understand the internal damage during the survey stage, and the "injury" is often found in the repair process; The "risk" lies in the fact that the southeast corner tower is seriously inclined towards the direction of the main road, crumbling, and there is a risk of collapse at any time; The "heavy" lies in the fact that the nine-story temple complex carries important historical values and religious connotations, and has a high status in the eyes of the Nepalese people, and the task force shoulders heavy responsibilities.
Risk-free support is urgent. The task force first reinforced the wall support to reduce the wall load; After reducing the danger, a temporary waterproof layer is made for the roof and the leakage place, and the inner and outer scaffolding are set up in the inner courtyard of the Luohan Courtyard and the outer circle of the building, which are linked to form an overall protective network frame, which not only protects some building parts, but also fully prepares for the implementation of the next project. Nepal hopes that the courtyard of the nine-story temple complex will remain open during the restoration work, and that the team will ensure the smooth progress of the project as much as possible while ensuring the safety of tourists and construction.
Considering the limited space and large number of visitors at the restoration site, we opened a "second job site" in the grounds of the National Museum of Nepal, 2.5 km away, for component sorting, documentation and pre-installation of corner towers. This process is easy to say, but the practical difficulties are beyond imagination. The team cleaned and labeled more than 10,000 wooden elements one by one, which took several months. At the same time, we extensively collect relevant historical documents, drawings, photos and other information, invite Nepalese experts and craftsmen to carefully identify and compare the scattered components, and all the components that can meet the safe use of the structure are restored in situ, and used as a reference basis for the replacement of missing components. The pre-installation process is like a difficult puzzle, repeatedly finding and matching the parts of the missing components until they are tightly sealed. The most difficult is the carving located at the junction of the floors, the number of components is large and the layer is occluded, and each interface requires extra patience and meticulousness. After completing the pre-installation of the collapse site, we disassembled and numbered all the components again, and transported them to the nine-story temple restoration site for formal installation.
A model of international cooperation on cultural heritage
The maintenance and protection of cultural relics pays attention to "one case for one discussion". Working overseas, we are exposed to the forms, structures and practices of heritage buildings that we have never been exposed to, and the restoration process is a process of continuous learning. As a typical Newvali architecture, the nine-story temple complex brings Nepal's traditional brick and stone craftsmanship and woodcarving to a very high level. The complex has its own meanings with countless gods, animals and auspicious motifs carved on the windows, diagonal braces and eaves pillars.
In order to better reflect the historical and artistic value of the nine-story temple, the team hired craftsmen from Nepalese woodcarvers to restore the components. They used dozens of carving knives of different sizes and thicknesses. When repairing the diagonal brace, it is necessary to draw a drawing of the damaged part according to the remaining part, and then engrave according to the drawing. A palm-sized dragon wood carving takes seven or eight days to complete by a skilled craftsman. From cracks as small as 1 centimeter in the eaves pillars to the damaged statues on the stained windows, the team took them to heart and asked local masters to repair them as much as possible.
"Repairing old components is time-consuming and laborious, so why not replace it with a new one? Where there is natural wear and tear, why not take the opportunity to 'give it a new look'? "During the restoration project, Nepal's partners once asked such questions. The Chinese team believes that the authenticity and integrity of cultural heritage buildings is largely reflected in the proportion of old components. It is easy to replace new components, but it loses the authenticity of the World Heritage Site. According to statistics, the project has redone more than 3,700 remade and supplemented engraving components, accounting for about 15% of all components, and the utilization rate of old components has reached 85%. What we do is not to "rejuvenate" heritage buildings, but to maximize the preservation of their original information.
In terms of structural reinforcement of heritage buildings, the maintenance team has also made great efforts. We have thoroughly studied the material characteristics and structural characteristics of the complex, and finally determined to use a concealed and reversible steel rope link to reinforce the weak nodes of the cultural relics building after repeated tests, so as to achieve the overall seismic reinforcement of the building. This overall reinforcement combined with the protection measures of soft links embodies the principles of "minimal intervention" and "reversible" in the restoration of cultural relics, and has obtained the authorization of utility model patents.
The efforts of Chinese cultural relics protection workers have won the affirmation of Nepalese friends and international counterparts. Nepalese President Bhandari said the nine-story temple restoration project "combines Nepal's ancient religious art with modern Chinese restoration techniques" and that the Chinese team's protective restoration of the artifacts is worth learning. Gotham, Director General of Nepal's Archaeological Department, praised the restoration project for protecting the authenticity and integrity of the complex, "Thanks to the Chinese government and Chinese experts for their great contributions to the restoration of Nepal's post-earthquake cultural heritage, the Chinese side has high efficiency and good quality, and the nine-story temple protection and restoration project is a model of international cooperation on cultural heritage." It is hoped that cultural heritage will become a bridge of friendship and that Nepal and China will carry out more cooperation in the field of cultural relics protection in the future."
Today, the restored nine-story temple complex welcomes more and more visitors from all over the world. Let the historical information of cultural relics buildings continue to be passed on across the long river of time, and let the exchanges and mutual learning of civilizations deepen the friendship between the peoples of all countries, which is the significance of Chinese cultural relics workers going abroad to protect world heritage.
(The author is a member of the nine-story temple restoration project team of Durbar Square in Kathmandu, Nepal)
People's Daily (Version 17, January 31, 2023)