The uniqueness of this city never disappoints you especially when it comes to the name of places and temples. The Chuma Ganesha temple, designated as the very first Ganesh temple of Bhaktapur somehow, too falls in such fanciful legends and in weird naming.
Being located in Chochhen tole of Bhaktapur made it geographically the temple situated in the upper part of the Bhaktapur Nagara. It is said that Chochhen originally came up after the term Choye Chongu Chhen which means the house of the upper part.
Chuma Ganesh temple, on the other hand also has its own legendary story. Even the origin of its name has a story. It is said that the rats of that area beyond their nature scared the cats. And when someone tries to investigate the matter, they found out the image of Lord Ganesh.
Legends say that the name Chuma is derived from the term Chu and Ma which respectively means the rat and line. Thus, assuming Lord Ganesha worshipped by the large line of mice, the name of the temple began to be called Chuma Ganesha.
However, there is one more story that is slightly different from the aforementioned yet the core story of being rats powerful is the same. As per the story, when the king saw a fight between cat and rat and saw cat losing into the rat. He got amazed and follow the rat. There he found the Chuma Ganesh.
After being blessed by him, he was also told that there is Bhadrakali in the south of the area. And he should go there and worship her. The king as ordered went there and worship her. Being pleased by the king, she then gave him instruction to build a nagara in between these two areas; Chuma Ganesha and Bhadrakali temple.
Next, the king establishes the Bhaktapur Nagar along with the first Ganesh temple, Astamatrikas and Astabhairavas.
Besides, the architecture of the temple is likewise quite unique. Although it is a pagoda-style temple, its false tire has multiple layers like design which indeed is unique and satisfactory for the eyes.
There is this simple method of recognizing gods and goddesses if you are unable to tell which deity you are looking on to. Their postures and sculptures might not be the same in every temple or sculpture. However, their vehicle (Vahan-different creatures), no matter how the sculpture was modified never replaced by another fauna. Thus, you can easily recognize any Hindu deity just by looking at their vehicle. For example, the Vahan of Lord Vishnu is Garuda, so wherever you find such a creature, you could tell there is a temple of Lord Vishnu nearby.
No, they are not. Although dyo chhen literally means the house of gods, it has no features of a temple. Dyo chhens are only used to store important things related to the relevant temple, like the palanquins.
Nepal is well known as the nation filled with temples or the country of temples because it has a tremendous number of temples in its territory. Not just that, it’s also because, in each and every house in Nepal, there is a separate room as “Puja ghar”, which means a sacred place for worship. Following this fact, you can say that there are more temples than the number of houses in Nepal. Perhaps this is why Nepal is called a nation filled with temples.
This Chuma Ganesh temple is located at Chhoche tole in Bhaktapur. You need to walk up to the stone-paved hill from Byasi to reach this temple.
Chuma Ganesh is worshipped as one of the three major Ganesh temples of Bhaktapur Nagara and it is associated with a few jatras and festivals, thus you could say, it is quite popular in Bhaktapur.
Chochhen, Bhaktapur.
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