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Set atop a twelve-tiered plinth and rising 40m above the northeast end of Durbar Square, the magnificent Taleju Mandir was erected in the mid-sixteenth century by King Mahendra Malla, who decreed that no building should exceed it in height - a ban that remained in force until the middle part of this century. Kathmandu's biggest temple, it looks down on you with haughty grandeur. It's open only on the ninth day of Dasain, and then only to Nepalis, who make sacrifices to Durga in the courtyard. Taleju Bhawani, a south Indian goddess imported in the fourteenth century by the Mallas, is considered by Hindus to be a form of the mother goddess Durga, while Buddhist Newars count her as one of the Taras, tantric female deities. Behind the Taleju Mandir, reached by a doorway from Makhan Tol, sits the brick god-house of Tarani Devi , Taleju's "older sister".
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