A Preliminary Investigation into the Religious Profile of King Jitāmitramalla of Bhaktapur Through his Compositional and Scribal Works

Abstract

Abstract This article aims to provide a preliminary investigation into the religious profile of a Malla-era Newar king, namely Jitāmitramalla (r. 1673–1696), by examining his scribal and compositional output. It does this by engaging with largely unstudied sources, chiefly (i) an unpublished poem written by King Jitāmitra known as the Siddhilakṣmīmantrayantroddhārastotra in which the monarch extols the goddess Siddhilakṣmī and lays out methods for her worship and (ii) the colophons of seven liturgical paddhatis copied by this king, which to my knowledge, are still undiscussed and untranslated in secondary literature. In doing so, we gain an insight into the King’s understanding of various aspects of his own religious identity, including his role as a tāntrika and his relationship with his chosen deities. The material studied will also uncover new information on the religious affiliations of the royal Bhaktapuri court and the medieval religious landscape of the Kathmandu Valley generally.