Conservation and Management of Mahalaxmi Temple at Balambu

Abstract

The conservation works in Nepal can be dated back to times long before the introduction of Ancient Monuments Preservation Act in 2013 B.S. that marked the provision of modern concept of heritage conservation in Nepal. In case of Nepal, often architectural heritage is closely linked to cultural heritage of the people due to which conservation of heritages has been deemed important and carried out by the people through institutions such as guthis even before the establishment of a conservation administration. Currently there are different stakeholders in the conservation arena in Nepal such as the Department of Archaeology, municipality, community and international actors that pursue widely divergent approaches. For this study the Mahalaxmi temple at Balambu is taken as the subject of the research. The temple was recently reconstructed through the joint efforts of the Department of Archaeology and a committee of local community known as Mahalaxmi Purnanirman Samiti. The conservation of the temple is studied through the analysis of the recent reconstruction of the temple. The objectives of this research are to study the process of the reconstruction of Mahalaxmi temple and to analyze the issues related to the conservation through reconstruction of Mahalaxmi temple. To investigate the process of the reconstruction and to study the reconstruction of the temple field observations were done in addition to interviews of key informants. This study provides a reference for a current conservation project and further organization needed for better results in future projects. Hence this study is expected to provide suggestions for planning of future conservation works.