Panauti Durbar Square

Panauti Durbar Square sits at the heart of Panauti, a remarkably intact medieval Newar town at the sacred confluence of the Roshi and Punyamati rivers in Kavrepalanchok. The square is dominated by the great Indreshwar Mahadev temple and ringed by shrines, rest-houses (pati/sattal) and tightly packed brick houses, preserving the atmosphere of a small Malla-era town. Explore it as a photoreal 3D Gaussian-splat capture in the interactive viewer and in Live AR.

Panauti grew as a trading town and minor seat at the river junction, and its square took shape under the Malla kings. The Indreshwar Mahadev temple that anchors it is traditionally dated to 1294 — making its core among the oldest surviving temples in the valley — and was rebuilt after the 1408 earthquake while preserving early carved elements. The town and square were restored after the 2015 Gorkha earthquake.

Panauti is central to Newar ritual life and famed for the Makar Mela, a great pilgrimage held at the river confluence once every twelve years. Its intact townscape places it on Nepal's tentative list of World Heritage sites.

The square is an ensemble of Newar architecture: the three-roofed Indreshwar Mahadev pagoda on its stepped plinth — celebrated for carved wooden roof struts (tunala) among the finest medieval woodwork in Nepal — alongside the Unmatta Bhairava temple, the Brahmayani shrine and riverside cremation ghats at the confluence.

Current condition: Well preserved; restored after the 2015 earthquake

Conserved with international support; Panauti is on Nepal's UNESCO tentative list for its medieval Newar townscape. HamroSampada has produced a 3D Gaussian-splat record of the square as a digital-preservation reference.