Wednesday, October 13, 2010

The Stone Inscription of King Pratap Malla

I thought this was a good picture for the header of my blog:




It is a stone inscription set into the Royal Palace by King Pratap Malla in 1664. It is dedicated to the Goddess Kali and written in 15 different languages, including French and English (to me it looks like the words "New" "Inter" and "L'Hivert"). According to legend, if any person is able to read all 15 languages milk will flow out of the wall from a spout nearby.

And by legend I mean random untrustworthy websites and Nepal guidebooks. If anybody can find any better information on the stone inscription, like the names of the languages or the content of the inscription, I would appreciate it.

3 comments:

  1. I think you need to learn all 15 of these languages stat. You probably know 6 of them already, anyway.

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  2. The words in Roman letters start from the preceding line: AVTOMNE, WINTER and L'HIVERT. The names of the languages are given in the inscription. A few that I remember: Persian, Arabic, Tibetan, Phiringee (=European).

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  3. Is that limestone obscuring the inscription to the left? Might be useful to remove that with a light acid. L'Hivert seems like a French name, perhaps Winter is a name as well.

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