History is uncertain: it is a long time ago. Deupatan was either a flourishing city spread about the most holy shrine of Pashupatinath, or the sacred land waiting for a city. Certainly there must have been a settlement, a centre of pilgrimage already. The king, according to early travellers, lived near the temple where he worshipped daily.

There was a palace on a mound above Pashupatinath. And a road led to distant Swayambhunath on its sacred hill. Tradition, legend, natural surmise, has a sprawl of habitation about the sickle of the Bagmati that flowed through the Kathmandu Valley It was called Manjupatan after Manjushri, who drained a lake to form the Valley. In the morass of time, dates have small meaning but a halo is forever cast about the time when Gautama Buddha was born. Scholars will forever debate whether he visited the valley of the gods or not: tradition says he did. He visited the city or town of Patan, where he bestowed the favour of his name upon the blacksmith caste by elevating them to Sakyas. After visiting Swayambhu he sat upon the lion throne made by Viswakarman, and read from the Puranas to the large company of people who had gathered to do him honour What concerns us more is the coming of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka in the footsteps of his master. He raised or added to existing stupas wherever the Buddha had tarried or preached: four about the city of Patan, one on Swayambhunath hill, one at Baudhanath and one at Kirtipur.

There exist other stupas that may be Ashokan, overlooked by historians and scholars both. One is on the hill of the thirty-two butterflies, not far from Pashupatinath, another beside the new ring road below Swayambhunath and a third to the north of Bhaktapur. But even these are outside the limits of my concern with Ashoka's daughter Charumati.

They merely substantiate the visit to the Kathmandu Valley of her forever famous father.

She must have travelled with him, and either it was love, a political arrangement or a strange fascination that had her married to a prince, Devapala, who is historically connected with Deupatan, near Pashupatinath. Hearsay history has him either living in the palace above the temple and administering the township of Deupatan, or founding it together with Charumati.

One fairly authenticated version of shadowy history has the impetuous Charumati-her beauty, her graces are left to imagination-deeply impressed by a display of sorcery and black magic. Water was turned to oil, water burned, an iron arrowhead was changed to stone and a wooden staff into a writhing snake The Indian princess begged her father to many her to the young prince Devapala-handsome, courageous, himself possessed of mystic powers?

It was done, and Charumati remained in her new homeland, helping to found not just one new town, but two, because beside Deupatan she herself lavished patronage on a Buddhist settlement called Chabahil. There, inspired by her father, she raised and about it a vihara. Apparently she herself took more and more to a religious way of life and finally renouncing regal living, became a nun.
My sketch is of the Charumati vihar or bahal as it is today: old, very old, but obviously not original. Perhaps it stands on ancient foundations, for the people of Chabahil are firm in their belief that it was Charumati who built it. The pujari doesn't even know who Charumati was: a goddess, he told me.

Three shrines occupy the square building. Beside the entrance, in the spirit of Buddhist-Hindu coexistence, is a small shrine to Bhairab, the terrifying protector. The main shrine is occupied by a standing Avalokeshwar, and immediately above, in a shrine forbidden to most visitors, is an Ajima, or grandmother goddess worshipped by Buddhists and Hindus alike.

Before the main shrine is a chaitya carved with four Buddhas that date to earliest Licchavi times (AD 300-800). Although still remarkably preserved, this historic monument is in urgent need of restoration. The pujari told me that some foreigners-he thought Americans-had come some years ago with promises to repair the building, but they never returned.

Nearby is the stupa Charumati built, painted with large, all-seeing eyes and surrounded by small votive chaityas, stupas and images. A beautiful Licchavi Buddha that had stood out the centuries, was briefly stolen but returned. All trace of the monastery that stood about the shrine has disappeared. Modern building begins to encroach upon the old Chabahil and its ancient neighbour Deupatan, are but names; only a few old buildings indicate where they once stood: in Chabahil, the stupa and the courtyard named after Charumati; in Deupatan, a tantric temple and a stone bath fed by carved water spouts Where the prince and princess might once have bathed, and some ancient paving stones.
There is still the strong sense of tantric mysticism that attracted Charumati to the place. Legend has it that a tantric was locked for days in religious debate with a visiting Shankaracharya from south India in the small courtyard of an existing temple courtyard. The debate ended only when the Shankaracharya discovered that the temple goddess herself was aiding the tantric sage. And residents of the area are given to saying that they hear strange and often terrifying noises in the night, coming from the direction of a tantric shrine that now stands beside the new highway that rings the Kathmandu Valley. Perhaps in the solemn and darkest darkness of the night, sorcerers still meet to change metal into stone and water into burning oil.