Patan: The place for bronze statues
Its craftsmen belong to the Sakya clan, who have been in the trade for generations
Kathmandu, Nepal Of different colours and sizes, they gleam from shops on either side of the narrow road that runs between the crowded buildings of Patan’s Oku-bahal area.
This is the place where the famous Nepali bronze statues are made and find a place on the altars of Bhutanese homes. Bhutanese, who are in Kathmandu, make a point to visit Oku-bahal and take home a statue.
Crafting an eight-inch Chenrezig (Avalokiteshvara) statue in the basement of his three-storied house, Yagya Ratna Shakya, 42, said he had been in the business for the past 30 years.
“We come from the Sakya clan, and our clan had been doing this for centuries,” he said. “ I feel it’s our duty to keep the tradition alive.”
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Yagya Ratna Shakya said the craft was alive since the 13th century. “The famous master Arniko, who introduced bronze casting and other metal crafts in Tibet, was also from here,” he claimed.
Statue makers of Patan use the wax technique to cast statues, which is time consuming. “But that’s what makes our work famous,” Yagya Ratna Shakya said.
Explaining the process of making a statue, Prem Sakya, 48, said it takes them a month to cast an eight-inched statue.
A model of a statue is made from the wax bought from the villages. It is then plastered with a mixture of mud and cow dung. This is dried and again plastered with a mixture of mud and husk, and then baked in a kiln to remove the wax.
Molten metal is then poured into the baked moulds. “We have to dip the statue in water to cool it off,” Prem Sakya said. “The cooling process helps to burst the mud case, and a metal image finally appears.”
Yagya Ratna Shakya, who does the chiselling work on the statues in his shop near the Mahaboudha temple, said the final touch is done after they coat the object with a mixture of gold and quicksilver or mercury.
The artists said they have to follow all the rules of anatomical proportion as prescribed in the Buddhist texts to produce a sacred image.
The Newars also make statues.
Om Kazi Shestra, 50, learned the art when he was 14. His village is a two-day journey from Patan, and his parents are farmers.
“It was difficult in the initial stages, as it’s something we’re not used to,” the father of two said. “We have to follow a certain discipline, and avoid impure food like onion, meat, garlic and alcohol, before casting the statues,” he said.
While he makes the statue, his wife helps him in cleaning the statue before they sell it to the shopkeepers.
Statue makers in Patan say their work is famous, not only because of the quality and material used, but because they do the work with their soul in it. “We love our work,” Yagya Ratna Shakya said. “We clean and offer incense to the statues every morning until it’s sold.”
Source: kuenselonline