The Nepal Weekly 
January 14, 2025
The memorial day of the great artist Araniko is celebrated with special importance in both Nepal and China. This tradition is celebrated every year on 23rd Poush since 2058 B.S. (08 January this year). The tradition of celebrating the memorial day of the great artist Araniko has been given official recognition under the leadership of the Nepal Commercial Artists Association.
Araniko was one of the key figures in the arts of Nepal and the Yuan dynasty of China, and the artistic exchanges in these areas. He was born in the Kathmandu Valley during the reign ofAbhayaMalla. He is known for building the White Stupa at theMiaoying Temple in Beijing. During the reign of Jayabhimadeva, he was sent on a project to build a golden stupa in Tibet, where he also initiated into monkhood. From Tibet he was sent further to northern China to work in the court of the emperor Kublai Khan, the founder of the Yuan dynasty, where he brought the trans-Himalayan artistic tradition to China. Araniko led a team of 80 artists to China proper and Tibet to make a number of pagoda-style buildings. In his later life, he renounced monkhood and started a family.
In the Chinese records, the name of his grandfather is given as “Mi-ti-rha” and grandmother as “Kun-di-la-qi-mei”, Chinese pronunciation for Sanskrit names Mitra and Kundalaxmi respectively. His father’s name was “La-ke-na” (Lakshman) while his mother’s name was “Shu-ma-ke-tai”.
As is often told in stories about professional artists, Araniko was an artistic prodigy even in his early childhood. An anecdote from his epitaph relates that when he was three years old, his parents in took the child to a temple to pay homage to the Buddha. Looking up at a stupa, he asked “who made its wooden stambha, bhumis, anda?” Greatly surprised, the people around realized that he was a born artist. When he was about seven, his temperament was sober like an adult. At school, he mastered his textbooks and became a good calligrapher in such a short time that even the venerable elders acknowledged their inferiority. He could memorize treatises on art as soon as he heard them read. Before he left Nepal for Tibet, he was already an expert in painting, modeling, and casting images.
At the initiative of the Araniko Society in China, a full-sized statue of Araniko has been constructed and placed in China. The statue installed in the famous White Chaitya complex built by the great artist Araniko shows that the world community, including China, is grateful to Araniko.
The White Chaitya located in Beijing is also considered a symbol of Nepal-China friendship. The White Chaitya made by Araniko is considered an important heritage site in China. It is estimated that millions of tourists visit this statue every year. The statue was designed by Nepalese artist KK Karmacharya and was built by sculptor Om Khatri under his direction. The statue was unveiled in the year 2059 B.S.
In the year 2024 B.S, 13 personalities who worked to increase the pride of Nepal were announced as national heroes. According to the same announcement, the artist Araniko was awarded the honour of National Heritage. So far only he has been recognized as a national artist. Since then, a postage stamp (full-length figure) has been published in Araniko’s memory.
The White Stupa, an exclusive landmark
The White Stupa of the Miaoying Temple was completed during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and was designed by the Nepalese architect Araniko (1245-1306). It is elevated on a 2-meter -high platform that occupies an area of more than 1,400 square meters. The stupa’s 9-meter-high base consists of three tiers, of which the upper two are designed as Sumeru terraces, an architectural style originating from Indian Buddhism and widely adopted in East Asia with a meaning of supreme stability. Each tier is bilaterally symmetrical and designed with origami edges along its four sides.
The main body of the White Stupa resembles a giant inverted bowl. At the juncture of the stupa body and its base, a lotus throne featuring 24 upturned carved lotus petals makes a natural transition between the two parts. The xianglun rings, a cone-shaped vertical shaft with 13 tiers of rings piling up in decreasing diameter to the top, hold up the canopy and the gilded bronze finial.
The White Stupa of the Miaoying Temple was the greatest work of Araniko and is the only well-preserved cultural relic of the Dadu capital of the Yuan Dynasty in Beijing. It is a tribute to the historical friendship between China and Nepal.
