Patan Vabaha History and Inventory of a Newar Buddhist Monastery

This volume presents the religious, architectural, and textual background of Vabeha, one of the 16 main monasteries of Patan, located in one of the three royal cities of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal. The history of the Buddhist monastic courtyard and its objects is presented along with 42 inscriptions, dating from 1596 CE to 2021.

Bijay Basukala is an artist from Bhaktapur, engaged in the documentation of the architectural heritage of the Newars. He documented three of the monastery’s four caityas in 2021 with measured drawings. Niels Gutschow is an architectural historian from Heidelberg University in Germany who has been working in Nepal since 1970. In 1993 he was in charge of the restoration of the shrine building of Vabaha and initiated the dismantling and re-erection of the monastery's Licchavicaitya. Nutandhar Sharma is a cultural historian from Patan, who documented the re-erection of the Licchavicaitya in 1993 and compiled the transliteration and synopses of 42 inscriptions in 2021.