By A Staff Reporter

Kathmandu, Sept. 9: The reconstruction of Jaya Bageshwori temple has halted after the three ancient pinnacles were discovered from the inner top of the temple.
The temple was damaged by the devastating earthquake of 2015. Three golden pinnacles were discovered while the temple reconstruction was underway.
Consequently, the reconstruction of the temple that lies in vicinity of the Pashupatinath Temple has been halted.
According to Bharat Marasini, director of Policy Division of Pashupati Area Development Trust (PADT),as the ancient pinnacles were discovered from thetemple, archeological study should be carried out tofind out original architectural design of the temple.
The construction process has been postponed in the absence of an expert and inscription that could have explained its original architectural design, he said.
As these pinnacles were buried on the top part of the temple, they were covered with mud and some of its parts were damaged, he added. According to Marasini, it is hard to figure out what sorts of metals were used in the pinnacles and hard to say if these were gold plated or not.
“We have only prepared exterior architectural design map of the temple because we don’t have any inscription or documents that can explain the architectural design of the temple.”
“So an agreement was made to reconstruct the inner section by tracing out its design in the course of disassembling the structure.” Though there were no evidences, it seems like the outer structure of the temple was constructed by keeping its original structure as it is, said Marasini.
They had never thought that this would happen. “We have asked the Department of Archeology to carry out study overthe temple.”
Looking down from the top section, it looks like the temple was constructed into two layers. Colours of mud that were used to construct the inner and outer layers look different, he added. “Looking after this, we could speculate that these structures were built in different periods. But there were no evidences to prove it.”
Amrita Maharjan, Archeological officer of the department, who has been inspecting the reconstruction of the temple, said the inscription found on the bottom of the goddess idol has proved that it was built during the Licchhivi era. Later it was renovated in the period of 1731 B.S to 1737 B.S. during therule of King Nripendra Malla. According to Dr. Govinda Tandon who has done his Ph.D in the Pashupatinath, during the 1st and 2nd century there were number of miniature goddess idols in the area.
Explaining about the temple, Dr. Tondon added that however, we couldn’t find detail description of the temple in Bhasa dynasty and Gopal dynasty.
Chief priest of the temple, Mrityunjaya Karmacharya said the temple had survived the massive earthquake of 1990 B.S. “My ancestors have never shared that the temple has ever gone through any reconstruction.” Reconstruction of Jaybageshwori temple was begun six months ago. Kshyama Puja (prayer for forgiveness) was also conducted at the site to mark the formal beginning of constriction work.