The Malla Era at Pashupatinath Temple

The Malla era (roughly 1201–1769 CE) is the single most important architectural period in Pashupatinath’s history — the nearly six-hundred-year span in which a modest, repeatedly damaged Licchavi-era shrine was rebuilt, again and again, into the gold-roofed pagoda that stands on the Bagmati today. It is also the period in which the temple stopped belonging to one kingdom. After the Kathmandu Valley split into three rival capitals in 1482, Kathmandu, Patan, and Bhaktapur each kept building at, imitating, or endowing Pashupatinath, even while fighting one another over almost everything else. This page traces that six-century arc in detail — the kings, the reconstructions, the 1349 looting and its aftermath, the valley’s division, and the final 1690s rebuild that gave the temple its present form.

This entry is part of our History guide. For what came immediately before, see Licchavi Era; for what came after, see Shah Dynasty. For the complete chronology in one place, visit Timeline or the cross-era Temple Timeline in our About Pashupatinath guide.

Quick Answer: The Malla Era at a Glance

The sections below unpack each of these developments in order.

Who Were the Mallas?

The Malla dynasty ruled the Kathmandu Valley for roughly five and a half centuries, beginning with Arideva (also recorded as Aridev Malla) in 1201 CE and ending in 1768–1769 when Gorkha’s Prithvi Narayan Shah absorbed the valley into a unified Nepal. For most of that span the Mallas governed the valley as a single kingdom; for its final three centuries, following a succession split in 1482, the valley was instead ruled by three competing Malla courts based in Kathmandu, Patan, and Bhaktapur. Regardless of which phase is in view, Malla rule is remembered above all as a golden age of Newar temple architecture — the era that produced Kathmandu Durbar Square, Patan Durbar Square, and Bhaktapur Durbar Square in something close to their present form, alongside a religious culture that blended Hindu and Buddhist practice with unusual fluency. Pashupatinath, already centuries old by the time the Mallas arrived, became the single project every Malla court kept returning to, generation after generation, regardless of who currently held Kathmandu’s throne.

For the kings named throughout this page, see our dedicated Kings page; for the dynasty’s place in the temple’s overall chronology, see History.

Early Malla Renovation: Ananta Malla’s Roof

The temple the Mallas inherited in 1201 was already the product of Licchavi-era construction dating back to roughly 400–505 CE — a history covered fully on our Licchavi Era page. What the earliest Malla kings added was refinement rather than reinvention. Chronicle tradition credits King Ananta Malla, ruling in the 13th century, with adding a formal roof to the existing structure — an early step in the transformation from a simpler shrine toward the tiered pagoda form that would eventually define the site. As with much of this period, the exact regnal dates are debated among historians working from the surviving Gopal Raj Vamshavali and related chronicles, a source-reliability problem discussed in more depth on our Origin page.

The 1349 Looting and Jayarjuna Deva’s Rebuilding

The most disruptive event of the early Malla period was not caused by a Malla king at all. In 1349 CE, a raiding force attributed to Sultan Shamsuddin of Bengal swept through the Kathmandu Valley, and Pashupatinath was among the sites looted; the sacred lingam itself was damaged in the process. The episode remains one of the few instances in the temple’s long history where the physical object of worship, rather than only its surrounding architecture, was directly harmed.

Recovery fell to the Malla court. Chronicle sources credit King Jayarjuna Deva, ruling in the late 14th century, with rebuilding the damaged temple and restoring the lingam to a fit condition for worship. This restoration is significant less for its architectural detail — which chronicles describe only briefly — than for what it established as a pattern: whenever Pashupatinath was damaged, by raid, termite, fire, or earthquake, the ruling court of the day treated its restoration as a non-negotiable duty of kingship. That same pattern recurs throughout the rest of this page, and again centuries later during the Earthquake Restoration following 2015.

Jayasthiti Malla: Unifying the Valley

Roughly a generation after Jayarjuna Deva’s restoration, Jayasthiti Malla (reigned 1382–1395 CE) brought the whole Kathmandu Valley under one crown after deposing his predecessor and consolidating control through a series of internal conflicts. His reign is remembered less for construction at Pashupatinath specifically than for the administrative and legal foundation he laid across the valley — a formal codification of caste structure and customary law that shaped Newar society for centuries afterward. That stability mattered for a temple as large and continuously active as Pashupatinath: a unified valley meant unified patronage, consistent land endowments, and a single royal treasury responsible for the site’s upkeep, rather than several rival courts each funding it inconsistently. That consistency would not last much beyond his grandson’s reign.

Yaksha Malla and the Trifurcation of 1482

Jayasthiti Malla’s line continued through his son Jayajyotir Malla and then his grandson, Yaksha Malla (also spelled Jayayakshya Malla), who ruled the united valley from around 1428 until his death in 1482. Yaksha Malla is remembered as an active builder and a military expansionist — his campaigns reportedly extended Nepal’s reach as far as Sikkim in the east and into parts of Bihar in the south — and, closer to home, as a patron who left his own mark inside Pashupatinath’s sanctum. Tradition credits him with commissioning the Vishwarupa image of Shiva housed within the main temple, a detail that connects a specific Malla king to a specific surviving feature of today’s Main Temple.

Yaksha Malla was also the last king to rule the entire Kathmandu Valley as a single Malla kingdom. When he died in 1482, his sons divided his territory among themselves, and the valley split into what would become three separate, permanently rival capitals: Bhaktapur, Kathmandu (Kantipur), and Patan (Lalitpur) — with a fourth, smaller principality at Banepa soon absorbed into Bhaktapur. This trifurcation defines the rest of the Malla era at Pashupatinath: from 1482 onward, the temple sat inside Kathmandu’s territory, but it never stopped being a valley-wide object of devotion, even for rulers who were, politically, Kathmandu’s rivals.

Rival Courts, Shared Devotion: The Pashupatinath Replicas

One of the more striking facts about this period is how the two rival courts responded to being excluded from ownership of the original Pashupatinath. Rather than diminishing the temple’s importance, Bhaktapur and Patan each built their own dedicated replica Pashupatinath temple within their own city limits — a direct, physical acknowledgment that Shiva-as-Pashupati remained central to Newar religious identity across the entire valley, political boundaries notwithstanding. Bhaktapur’s replica dates to around 1480, built under the Bhaktapur line descended from Yaksha Malla’s son; Patan’s followed around 1566. A third imitation, unconnected to the Malla courts, would later be built as far away as Benares (Varanasi) in the early 19th century — a measure of how far Pashupatinath’s reputation as a Shiva site had traveled by the end of the Malla period.

This detail matters for anyone researching Pashupatinath specifically: references to “the Pashupatinath temple in Bhaktapur” or similar are not errors, but they are not the temple this encyclopedia covers. The original — the one on the Bagmati, the subject of every other page in this guide — remained under Kathmandu’s stewardship throughout the trifurcated period, and it is Kathmandu’s line of kings that produced most of the reconstructions described below.

Mahendra Malla and Shivasimha Malla: The 16th-Century Court of Kathmandu

Through the 16th century, Kathmandu’s Malla kings continued the pattern of royal endowment at Pashupatinath alongside their better-documented building projects elsewhere in the city, such as Kathmandu Durbar Square’s Taleju temple complex under Mahendra Malla. The clearest architectural milestone from this period, however, comes slightly later: by the late 16th century, under King Shivasimha Malla (reigned approximately 1578–1620 CE), several sources describe Pashupatinath as having been restored to something close to the layout recognizable today. Continued termite damage to wooden structural elements meant this was not the end of the story — further reconstruction followed into the late 17th century — but Shivasimha Malla’s reign marks the point at which the temple’s modern silhouette begins to take shape, roughly a century before its final rebuild.

Pratap Malla: Kathmandu’s Great Patron-King

Pratap Malla (reigned 1641–1674 CE), the ninth king of Kantipur after the valley’s division, is remembered as one of the most colorful rulers of the entire Malla period — a self-styled poet who took the title Kavindra (“king of poets”), a builder of Rani Pokhari and the Krishna and Kala Bhairav shrines near Hanuman Dhoka, and an ambitious, if ultimately unsuccessful, would-be unifier of the valley’s three rival kingdoms. His patronage of Pashupatinath was substantial and specific: he donated a gold umbrella (chhatra) to the temple, and — according to court chronicles — commemorated a Koti Hom fire ritual, in which he reportedly weighed himself against gold and distributed the equivalent in charity, by raising a pillar at Pashupatinath’s southern gate and establishing a grazing ground nearby. He is also credited with building a temple to Guhyeshwari, the Shakti Peeth site closely linked to Pashupatinath and covered in more detail on our Mythology page and our Nearby Attractions guide.

Pratap Malla’s reign illustrates something important about Malla-era patronage generally: even kings whose primary ambitions were military or political — he spent much of his reign maneuvering against Patan and Bhaktapur — treated visible generosity toward Pashupatinath as a core part of legitimate kingship. Gold umbrellas, commemorative pillars, and land grants were not incidental gestures; they were a public, permanent record of a king’s piety that outlasted the political conflicts of his own lifetime.

Termite Damage and the Final Reconstruction: 1692–1697

By the late 17th century, decades of termite infestation had seriously compromised the temple’s wooden elements, forcing the most significant rebuilding project of the entire Malla era. This reconstruction, most commonly dated to 1692–1697 CE, produced the temple substantially as it stands today: the two-tiered, gold-gilt copper roof, the four silver-plated doors facing each cardinal direction, and the richly carved wooden struts depicting deities and mythical figures that visitors see on the Temple Complex today.

The identity of the king behind this final rebuild is one of the few genuinely unresolved questions in Pashupatinath’s documented history. Popular accounts and many modern sources credit King Bhupatindra Malla — but Bhupatindra Malla was king of Bhaktapur, not Kathmandu, reigning from 1696 to 1722, which sits awkwardly against a reconstruction dated to 1692–1697 in Kathmandu’s own territory. Other, more specialist sources instead name a closely related but distinct figure recorded as Bhupalendra Malla, tied more plausibly to Kathmandu’s own royal line in this period. Rather than resolve this definitively — the surviving chronicle evidence does not allow it — this encyclopedia presents both names as they appear across the historical record, consistent with how this same discrepancy is flagged on our broader Timeline page. What is not in dispute is the outcome: interestingly, one historical account describes the temple as having originally carried five roofs in an earlier pagoda form, before this era’s builders settled on the two-roof design familiar today — meaning even this “final” reconstruction was itself a refinement of what had come immediately before it, rather than a single, once-and-for-all rebuild.

The Architectural Legacy: What the Mallas Actually Built

Stripped of individual kings and dates, the cumulative Malla contribution to Pashupatinath can be summarized plainly: almost everything a visitor sees on approaching the Main Temple today is Malla-era work, layered over a Licchavi-era foundation. That includes the Golden Roof and its two-tiered pagoda form, the silver-plated doors on all four sides, the carved wooden struts and roof supports, the Vishwarupa image inside the sanctum, and much of the surrounding Architecture across the wider complex — shrines, courtyards, and sculptural details added incrementally across three centuries by kings who rarely agreed on anything else. This is also, not coincidentally, the same architectural vocabulary — pagoda roofs, carved struts, courtyard shrines — visible across Kathmandu, Patan, and Bhaktapur’s Durbar Squares, all built by the same three rival Malla courts during roughly the same centuries.

Religious Life at Pashupatinath During Malla Rule

Architecture is the most visible Malla legacy, but it is not the only one. The Malla courts were also responsible for formalizing much of the ritual calendar and daily worship structure still recognizable at Pashupatinath today. This is the same period covered in depth on our Rituals & Poojas pillar. Newar religious culture under the Mallas was notably syncretic — Hindu and Buddhist practice coexisted and overlapped throughout the valley, and Pashupatinath’s own priesthood, drawn traditionally from South Indian Bhatta Brahmins alongside local Newar priests, took much of its present shape during this period. Daily rites resembling the modern Daily Puja schedule, along with structured Morning Aarti and Evening Aarti observances, developed under sustained royal patronage rather than emerging fully formed from the earlier Licchavi period. Malla-era kings are also credited with expanding the temple’s festival calendar; several of the observances covered on our Festivals page, including elements of the modern Shivaratri and Teej celebrations, took on much of their present public scale during this era, as royal sponsorship turned temple observances into valley-wide civic events rather than purely priestly ones. Darshan practice, too — including the customary distinctions between ordinary and privileged access covered on our Darshan Guide page — has roots in the hierarchical court culture the Mallas built around the temple, in which a visiting king’s access to the sanctum was itself a matter of protocol and precedent.

This matters for understanding Pashupatinath today: the temple a modern pilgrim visits is not simply a Licchavi shrine that happened to survive, nor simply a Shah-era royal monument. Its physical form, ritual calendar, and priestly structure were all substantially shaped, in parallel, across these same Malla centuries — which is why historians and devotees alike tend to treat the Malla era as the temple’s true architectural and liturgical foundation, even though the site itself is considerably older.

The End of Malla Rule: 1768–1769

The Malla era at Pashupatinath ends not with a religious event but a military one. Through the 1760s, Prithvi Narayan Shah, the Gorkha king, waged a sustained campaign against the three weakened and mutually hostile Malla kingdoms of the valley. Kathmandu fell in 1768, and by 1769 Patan and Bhaktapur had followed, ending the Malla dynasty’s five-and-a-half-century rule and unifying Nepal for the first time under a single crown. Pashupatinath, already the valley’s most important temple after centuries of continuous Malla patronage, was inherited by the new Shah dynasty largely as-is — the 1690s reconstruction remained standing — but its political role changed immediately and permanently, becoming Nepal’s de facto royal and national shrine rather than one city-kingdom’s temple among three. That transition, and everything that followed it, is covered in full on our Shah Dynasty page.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long did the Malla era last? From 1201 CE, when Arideva became the first recorded Malla king, until 1768–1769 CE, when Prithvi Narayan Shah’s conquest ended Malla rule — a span of roughly 568 years.

Did one Malla king build the Pashupatinath we see today? No single king. The temple’s present form is the product of continuous work across the entire Malla era — early roof additions under Ananta Malla, a full rebuild after the 1349 looting under Jayarjuna Deva, restoration to near-modern form under Shivasimha Malla, and a final major reconstruction in 1692–1697 that produced the two-tiered gold roof and silver doors seen now.

Why did the Kathmandu Valley split into three kingdoms? When Yaksha Malla, the last king to rule the united valley, died in 1482, his sons divided his territory among themselves, creating the permanently rival kingdoms of Kathmandu, Patan, and Bhaktapur.

Did Patan and Bhaktapur have their own Pashupatinath temples? Yes. Both cities built their own replica Pashupatinath temples — Bhaktapur’s around 1480 and Patan’s around 1566 — a sign of how central Pashupati worship remained across the valley even after its political unity ended. The original temple on the Bagmati River, however, always remained in Kathmandu’s territory.

Who actually built the temple’s current gold roof — Bhupatindra Malla or Bhupalendra Malla? Sources disagree. Many popular accounts credit Bhupatindra Malla, who was in fact king of Bhaktapur (1696–1722), while more specialist sources point instead to a similarly named Kathmandu-line figure, Bhupalendra Malla. The surviving chronicle record does not resolve this cleanly, and this encyclopedia presents both names accordingly.

What ended the Malla era? Prithvi Narayan Shah’s Gorkha kingdom conquered Kathmandu in 1768 and Patan and Bhaktapur by 1769, ending Malla rule and beginning the Shah dynasty’s unification of modern Nepal.

For more direct answers, see our full FAQ section.

Where to Go Next

• Licchavi Era — the foundation the Mallas inherited and built on
• Shah Dynasty — what came after the Malla era ended in 1768–1769
• Timeline and Temple Timeline — the complete chronology across every era
• Kings — profiles of the rulers named on this page
• Main Temple, Golden Roof, and Architecture — the surviving Malla-era structure in detail
• Mythology — the Guhyeshwari and Vishwarupa traditions connected to this period
• Research Papers, Books, and Sanskrit References — scholarly sources behind this page

This entry is part of our History guide, covering the complete narrative of Pashupatinath Temple across the Kirat, Licchavi, Malla, Shah, and Rana eras.

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.