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If legend is to be believed, the Kasthamandap , standing at the southwestern end of Durbar Square, is Kathmandu's oldest building, and one of the oldest wooden buildings in the world. It's said to have been constructed from the wood of a single tree in the late twelfth century (Singha Sattal, the smaller version to the south, was made from the leftovers), but what you see is mostly the result of several renovations since 1630. An open, pagoda-roofed pavilion ( mandap), it served for several centuries as a rest house ( sattal) along the Tibet trade route, and probably formed the nucleus of early Kathmandu. This corner of the square, called Maru Tol, still has the look of a crossroads, with sellers hawking fruit, vegetables and flowers. Many of the city's indigents sleep in the Kasthamandap at night. The Shah kings converted the Kasthamandap into a temple to their protector deity, Gorakhnath , whose statue stands in the middle of the pavilion. A word about the confusing matter of royal deities. Gorakhnath, a mythologized Indian guru, is revered as a kind of guardian angel by all the Shah kings. Taleju Bhawani, to whom many temples and bells are dedicated in the Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur Durbar Squares, played a similar role for the Malla kings. The Kumari has been worshipped by the kings of both dynasties, but mainly as a public gesture to secure her tika, which lends credibility to their divine right to rule. Finally, the present king, Birendra, exercising the prerogative of all Hindus, has taken as his own family deity Dakshin Kali, whose shrine is at the southern edge of the Kathmandu Valley. A Brahman priest usually sets up shop here to dispense instruction and conduct rituals. In four niches set around are shrines to Ganesh, the elephant-headed god of good fortune, which supposedly represent the celebrated Ganesh temples of the Kathmandu Valley (at Chabahil, Bhaktapur, Chobar and Bungamati), thus enabling Kathmandu residents to pay tribute to all four at once. The building to the southeast of the Kasthamandap is Kabindrapur , a temple to Shiva in his role as Nataraj ("Lord of the Dance"), which is mostly patronized by musicians and dancers. Opposite Kabindrapur, occupying its own side square, is a brick shikra (Indian-style, corncob-shaped temple) to Mahadev (Shiva).
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