Walking the kora:A sound portraitfrom Boudhanath,January 2008

Boudhanath.mp3, 24:00 (22MB)

There are actually two recordings from Boudhanath, near Kathmandu, in the file above. The horns at the beginning were played by two monks on the upper balcony of one of the monasteries along the Boudhanath kora. Kora is a Tibetan word for the walking course, or the act of circumambulation, around a venerated site.

It was near 9 p.m. when the horns were being played, and the plaza was just about empty. I don't know what the purpose was (ritual or just practice?) and when I went back at the same time on other nights, there was no one performing.

In any case, it was an arresting and enchanting sound. Brought back the memory of hearing the Tibetan long horns being played as several thousand people and I converged on the National Mall to see and hear the Dalai Lama in July 2000.

After you hear the horns recede, the recording changes to the sounds from the kora around 8 a.m. the next day. At the northern tangent one will find a couple of enclosed shrines, the outer one flanked by two, one-meter-high prayer wheels. The pealing bells were inside of that shrine and another one located on the stupa's first tier.

Walking clockwise around the structure, I picked up the sounds of people's steps, snippets of conversations and the recitation of mantra (as well as a little hocking-up of phlegm). The whir and wobble of wood that you might catch was from the prayer wheels along the stupa's base.

There are a number of religious supply shops and tourist stores around the stupa. The strong and clear recitations and pop music you'll hear came from those shops' speakers.

There was another live performance captured during the first go-round. The sounds came from a second-floor music school next to the monastery where the monks played the night before. The plasticky squeaking right afterward was, as you can imagine, a child with a toy.

And then there's more of the same as I went around again. Oh yeah, I forgot that I walked through the shrine with the bells the second time. No wonder they're so loud.