When my maternal grandfather was still alive, he attended to what could be called our “clan guardian” deity’s residence. All I know is that it was in a cave across the Kali Gandaki river that flowed below our village. I would loved to have learned more about it from him but it was not to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was the same grandfather who I had been with<\/a> — in my village of Tangbe, in Mustang — as a toddler. On my dad’s request, reluctantly, he had dropped me off in Pokhara, still a toddler, and had piggybacked me to and back from school, everyday until he returned to the village.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And when I had ended up at St. Xavier’s Godavari School in Kathmandu, he had been the proudest man in the village!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, he passed away, when I was in fourth grade (the same year my classmates ostracised me<\/a>)! It would be twenty years<\/a> before I returned to my village, by which time of course, my grandfather had been long gone. So, I learned nothing more about that cave and others that are everywhere around our village as well as in the rest of the district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, foreign scholars recently came to the rescue! The caves were explored, studied and researched by a National Geographic team earlier this century. What they have uncovered is fascinating!<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of things they were in search of was the secret cave temples, of which there is supposed to be nine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The following video is about the actual expedition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n