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Bijeshwari , along the west bank of the Bishnumati on the way to Swayambhu, used to be Kathmandu's execution ground; Henry Ambrose Oldfield, one of the few Europeans allowed to tour Nepal in the nineteenth century, attended a beheading here and pronounced the place "a regular Golgotha". While Tibetan immigrants have broken the taboo against settling near the cursed ground, a fear of ghosts still endures, as do two important but little-visited temples. Bijeshwari Bahal , perched at the top of a flight of steps above the river, is the centre of worship of an esoteric Buddhist goddess, Bijeshwari (Lord of Victory), who is also known as Akash (Sky) Jogini and sometimes counted as the fifth of the valley's Bajra Joginis, the wrathful aspects of the tantric Tara goddesses. The inner courtyard is thick with chaitya and stone figures, and doors around the perimeter are painted with probing pairs of eyes - a reminder to worshippers that the Buddha is watching, and an injunction to look inward. Just upstream stands a new cremation pavilion, and beyond that, the Hindu Shobha Bhagwati Mandir . Bhagwati is a common Nepali name for the mother goddess, and this idol of her is considered to be among the most powerful manifestations in the valley: early in the morning you might see political candidates, students preparing for exams, or anyone requiring quiet strength coming here to do puja to her. According to legend, the sculptor of the Shobha Bhagwati image here carved it with his feet, his hands having been cut off by a jealous king to prevent him from reproducing an earlier masterwork in the king's collection.
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