The Stone Garden of Gorkha

The hill fort of Gorkha, ancestral seat of the Shah kings, stands above the clouds on a ridge so high that in the mornings you look down on the eagles. Within its walls, behind the main temple, there is said to be a garden where the stones themselves bloom.

The story begins with a queen of Gorkha who loved flowers more than power. When her husband went to war — as the kings of Gorkha always went to war — she tended her garden. But the altitude was cruel. Nothing grew above the frost line for more than a season.

She prayed to Gorakhmath, the fierce saint for whom the hill was named, for a garden that would never die.

Gorakhmath appeared to her in the form of a wandering sadhu, dust-covered and sharp-eyed. "I can give you a garden that will never die," he said, "but the flowers will be made of stone."

The queen thought about this for seven days. On the eighth day she said: "Yes. A stone flower does not need my tending, and it does not die when I am gone. Give me the stone garden."

S