Seto Machhindranath

Jana Baha Dyah — White Machhindranath — is one of Kathmandu's most loved deities and is understood as a form of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion.

The image is white-faced, with half-closed eyes, and resides the rest of the year in the shrine at Jana Bahal, the courtyard temple off the lane between Kel Tol and Asan. It is venerated by Buddhists and Hindus alike, which is entirely ordinary in Kathmandu and confuses almost every visitor who asks which religion the festival belongs to. The answer is that the question does not divide the way it is expected to.

The Patan counterpart, Rato Machhindranath, is the red form, with a far longer and larger festival. The two are treated as a pair — Kathmandu's white deity and Patan's red one — and the valley's two great chariot festivals are the two halves of that pairing.