Date: 4th June 2019
Place: National Museum of Nepal, Chhauni, Kathmandu 44600
The Chhauni museum, also called National Museum of Nepal is oldest museum of Nepal. I am not explaining the history and each and every detail of the museum but sharing my own experience of visiting there.
Of course, you can access to full details of this museum through this link.
I have already visited this museum 3 times and every-time I visit there, it always fascinates me. Of course, I can clearly remember the experience I had there last time I visited. But, it's hard to remember the past two experience as I was kid back then.
The museum carries it's own historical and cultural importance. There were many ancient sculptures made of stone as well as wood.
The sculptures like above clearly showed how much time and effort did ancient sculptor took while making one of these masterpiece. Most of these art-forms showed figure of god and goddesses of both Hinduism and Buddhism.
I was amazed by the beauty of these sculptures but there was more to experience in the museum. There were so many sculptures in the museum that all of them are impossible to mention in this blog.
The entry free was about 100 bucks and the experience was worth it.
After great experience in the sculptures section, we went to the section where there were statues of buddha and ancient thankas(form of painting). It was on the seperate building. It was really a great experience there where we learnt a lot about buddhism, the life of buddha, his teachings etc. The maintenence of these art form were excellent as compared to previous section.
The Thanka looks like this. I took this photo in previous section where photo were permitted. Unfortunately, there were not many thankas on display. However, this would do justice to these fabulous art form as one should personally be there to experience something like that.
After that section, we went to section where dead animals were preserved. At first, it was something creepy to see but after a while, you actually experience beauty of it.
The above picture shows head of rhino being preserved and shown on display. There were many animals whose skull were shown. There were some small animals whose whole body were preserved as shown below:
The above picture is of Jungle cat which is perfectly preserved in the museum.
The above picture is of skull of one horned rhino(gaida) which is found on terai region of Nepal.
After this section, we attempted to enter section where ancient and modern money of Nepal are kept but unfortunately we could not enter there as the building was partially destroyed due to 2015 April 25 earthquake.
After an unsuccessful attempt to enter there, we went to section where lifestyle of Nepali people of different communities were depicted in very unique way.
The above picture shows the lifestyle of Nepali Brahmins in ancient times. There were depictions of other communities like Newar, Chhetris, Magar etc.
After that section, we went to section where there were dolls from different countries on display. Here is the picture of doll showing lifestyle of Sikh community of India.
It was truly a magical experience visting in the museum. Although, we could not visit every section over there, it was still worthy. Its always a new learning experience when go to places like these. I hope when I visit there next time, it gets upgraded from what it is now. I hope you get there a learn something as well :).