Main Temple: Inside Pashupatinath’s Pagoda Sanctuary

The Main Temple is the golden-roofed pagoda at the heart of the entire Pashupatinath complex — a two-tiered, copper-and-gold Nepalese pagoda roughly 23.6 meters tall, standing on a square stone platform on the western bank of the Bagmati River, and housing the Chaturmukha (four-faced) Shiva Linga that gives the whole site its sanctity. Everything else at Pashupatinath — the ghats, the shrines, the surrounding forest — radiates outward from this single building, rebuilt in its present form in the late 17th century but standing, in one form or another, on ground that has been continuously sacred for far longer.

This entry is part of our Temple Complex guide. For the specific four-faced lingam enshrined inside, see our dedicated entry on the sanctum’s linga; for the golden bull statue that faces it, see our entry on the Nandi statue here at the temple; for the mythology behind why this site is sacred at all, see Deer Story in our Mythology guide.

Quick Answer

Architecture and Structure

The Main Temple is built in the two-tiered Nepalese pagoda style, a distinctive Kathmandu Valley architectural tradition that blends indigenous Newar design with South Indian shikhara (tower) influences — the same building tradition responsible for much of the valley’s most celebrated religious architecture. The temple rests on a square stone base platform, and the full structure, including its double copper roof and gold pinnacle, rises to a height most commonly cited as 23.6 to 23.7 meters, or roughly 75 feet, though exact figures vary slightly across sources.

Both roof tiers are made of copper and gilded with gold, capped by a golden pinnacle (gajur) and finial that catch the light across the temple’s skyline and dominate the complex visually from nearly every angle. The building’s wooden elements — struts, lattice windows, and richly carved rafters — are worked from hardwoods such as sal and rosewood, cut and jointed using techniques adapted for the Kathmandu Valley’s seismic activity; flexible wooden joinery and overhanging eaves are part of what has allowed the structure to survive repeated regional earthquakes, including the major 2015 Gorkha earthquake, which damaged several surrounding buildings in the complex but left the Main Temple’s core structure and sanctum intact.

Four doors provide access to the inner sanctum, one on each cardinal side, each plated with silver sheets worked in repoussé (raised relief) technique. The western door functions as the temple’s primary entrance, opened for regular worship, while all four are opened together during Abhisheka, the ritual bathing of the lingam. For more on the temple’s overall floor plan and courtyard arrangement, see our Temple Layout entry; for a closer look at the roof structure itself, see Golden Roof; and for detail on the four doors specifically, see Four Doors.

Inside the Sanctum

The Main Temple contains two garbhagrihas (sanctums): an inner sanctum, where the principal idol is enshrined, and an outer sanctum, an open corridor-like space surrounding it. The inner sanctum houses Pashupatinath’s central object of worship — a black stone Mukhalinga (a Shiva Linga carved with faces), commonly described as roughly one meter tall, set on a silver base and encircled by a silver serpent. Sources describe the lingam as showing four carved faces, one oriented toward each cardinal direction, with a fifth, featureless face understood to face upward — a configuration echoing the Pancha Brahma, the five-fold aspect of Shiva described across Shaiva scripture.

Only a small number of specially designated Bhatta priests are permitted to physically touch the lingam during ritual; all other worshippers, Hindu devotees included, view and worship from outside the inner sanctum itself rather than approaching the idol directly, a restriction distinct from many other Shiva temples in South Asia. A large Nandi statue — described variously as gilded brass or bronze — stands facing the sanctum from just outside, in the position of permanent, attentive darshan that Nandi statues traditionally occupy at Shiva temples everywhere.

A Long and Layered History

Establishing a single, uncontested founding date for the Main Temple is not possible from the surviving sources, which disagree — sometimes considerably — on the site’s earliest history. The Gopalaraj Vamsavali, Nepal’s earliest known royal chronicle, credits the temple’s establishment to a Licchavi-era king, with different chronicles naming either Prachanda Deva or Supuspa Deva as the founder; one account describes an original five-story wooden temple. The temple’s documented existence is generally traced to at least the 4th or 5th century CE, though tradition holds the site’s religious significance to be considerably older still, rooted in the Deer Story legend rather than in any datable construction.

The structure was rebuilt and repaired repeatedly across the centuries that followed. It is recorded as reconstructed under the medieval king Shivadeva in the late 11th or early 12th century, with a roof later added by the Malla king Ananta Malla. In 1349, the temple was looted and its Shiva Linga reportedly broken during a raid attributed to Sultan Shamsuddin of Bengal; it was subsequently rebuilt and its lingam replaced during the reign of a later ruler recorded as Arjun Deva. The structure standing today dates specifically from the late 17th century, when the Malla king Bhupatindra Malla rebuilt the temple after termite damage to the earlier wooden structure — a reconstruction dated by different sources to either 1692 or 1697. That Malla-era temple originally had five pagoda roof tiers, later reduced over time to the two-tiered roof visible today.

In the early 19th century, King Girvan Yuddha Bikram Shah expanded the temple’s protected area substantially by dedicating four fortresses near the complex in Pashupatinath’s name. In 1979, UNESCO inscribed the wider Pashupatinath Temple complex, including the Main Temple, on its World Heritage List.

Who Serves the Temple

Daily ritual at the Main Temple is carried out by hereditary and merit-selected Bhatta priests, traditionally drawn from Brahmin communities in Karnataka, South India, following the Krishna Yajurveda ritual tradition. Temple tradition attributes the origin of this arrangement to Adi Shankaracharya, the influential Advaita philosopher and reformer — though the exact century in which he lived is itself a matter of some disagreement among sources, with mainstream historical scholarship generally placing him around the 8th century CE, while certain traditional Hindu chronologies place him considerably earlier; this entry does not attempt to resolve that broader dating question. What both traditions agree on is the underlying claim: that the South Indian priestly lineage serving Pashupatinath today descends from an arrangement established, or endorsed, by Shankaracharya himself, and that this lineage has continued for centuries under successive Nepali royal patronage.

Only a small number of Bhatta priests — typically four or five at a time — are authorized to touch the central lingam directly. They are assisted by Rajbhandari priests, a role generally understood as descending from local Newar attendants who assimilated into temple service over time and today handle caretaking, treasury, and supporting ritual duties rather than direct contact with the deity.

Visiting the Main Temple

Entry into the Main Temple’s inner courtyard is restricted to Hindus and, by longstanding practice, Buddhists of Nepali and Indian tradition; non-Hindu visitors are not permitted inside the sanctum area itself, though they may view the temple’s golden roofline and general setting from the eastern bank of the Bagmati River, opposite the main pagoda, or from designated viewing areas within the wider complex. This restriction applies specifically to the Main Temple building; most of the surrounding complex — shrines, ghats, and the wider grounds — remains open to visitors of any background. For practical guidance on timings, dress, and what to expect at the gates, see our Darshan Guide; for wider guidance on visiting the complex as a traveler, see our Travel Guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

For more direct answers, see our full FAQ section.

Where to Go Next

• Temple Layout — how the Main Temple fits within the wider complex’s courtyards and grounds
• Golden Roof — a closer look at the temple’s distinctive gilded pagoda roof
• Four Doors — the temple’s four silver-plated entrances in detail
• Darshan Guide — timings, entry rules, and what to expect when visiting
• Deer Story — the mythology explaining why this site became sacred
• Architecture — the broader architectural traditions shaping the complex

This entry is part of our Temple Complex guide, mapping the Pashupatinath complex — its main pagoda, golden roof, four doors, ghats, cremation grounds, shrines, and the architectural details that define it.

The Pashupatinath is an independent devotional and cultural resource. It is not the official website of the Pashupati Area Development Trust (PADT) or the Government of Nepal. For official temple notices, consult PADT directly.