A dhunge dhara ( ) or hiti () is a traditional stone drinking fountain found in Nepal. It is an intricately carved stone waterway through which water flows uninterrupted from underground sources. Dhunge dharas are part of a comprehensive drinking water supply system, commissioned by various rulers of Ancient and Medieval Nepal. The system is supported by numerous ponds and canals that form an elaborate network of water bodies, created as a water resource during the dry season and to help alleviate the water pressure caused by the monsoon rains. After the introduction of modern, piped water systems, starting in the late 19th century, this old system has fallen into disrepair and some parts of it are lost forever. Nevertheless, many people of Nepal still rely on the old dhunge dharas on a daily basis.
Etymology Dhunge Dhara is a Nepali term which literally means "stone faucet". Hiti is the term used by the native Newar people, which derives from the Classical Newar word , a term which is used in historical records from the Malla dynasty to refer to the hiti system. One of the earliest mentions of the term is an inscription dated to 1387 (NS 508) set up by Jayasthiti Malla. Stone inscriptions from the Lichhavi dynasty refer to the hiti system as Pranali.
History The history of dhunge dharas began during the Licchavi Kingdom (c. 400–750 AD). The earliest record of a dhunge dhara names king Brisasdev (c. 400–425 AD) as the creator of the water system. Joshi's Hiti Pranali launched by Himalayan News Service, 7 July 2022
The first known hiti was built in Kathmandu at Hadi Gaun by a grandson of Lichhavi King Mandev I in 550 AD.Disaster Risk Management for the Historic City of Patan, Nepal by Rits-DMUCH, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan and Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal, 2012, retrieved 16 September 2019 One Nepalese legend would indicate the existence of a working dhunge dhara in approximately 464 AD (see below).
Manga Hiti at Mangal Bazar in Patan is considered to be the oldest working dhunge dhara on record. It was built in 570 AD. In the case of the Hadi Gaun hiti and Manga Hiti, the dates were engraved on a stone within the hiti. Gradually more hitis started to appear elsewhere in Kathmandu Valley.Water Conduits in the Kathmandu Valley (2 vols.) by Raimund O.A. Becker-Ritterspach, , Published by Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, India, 1995 (unpublished)
During the Malla period (c. 1201–1779 AD) many more hiti systems were built. Jitamitra Malla of Bhaktapur, Pratap Malla of Kathmandu and Siddhinarshinha Malla of Patan are famous for the water systems in these cities. The hiti built in 1829 by Queen Lalit Tripura Sundari Devi and Bhimsen Thapa at Sundhara village (now Kathmandu) is generally believed to be the last one built.Dhunge-Dharas in the Kathmandu Valley - An Outline of their Architectural Development by Raimund O.A. Becker-Ritterspach, Ancient Nepal 116-118, 1990, retrieved 28 October 2019Dhunge-Dharas in the Kathmandu Valley. Continuity and Development of Architectural Design by Raimund O.A. Becker-Ritterspach, Change and Continuity, 1996UN-HABITAT, 2007. Water Movement in Patan with reference to Traditional Stone Spouts ,
In 2008, the dhunge dharas of Kathmandu Valley produced 2.95 million litres of water per day.Kathmandu Valley Groundwater Outlook . Shrestha S., Pradhananga D., Pandey V.P. (Eds.), 2012, Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), The Small Earth Nepal (SEN), Center of Research for Environment Energy and Water (CREEW), International Research Center for River Basin Environment-University of Yamanashi (ICRE-UY), Kathmandu, Nepal In 2019 the amount of water produced by the dhunge dharas in Kathmandu was estimated at 382,399 litres per day.KMC, campaigners team up to revive stone spouts in capital by Binu Shrestha, The Rising Nepal, 3 July 2020
Of the 389 stone spouts found in Kathmandu Valley in 2010, 233 were still in use, serving about 10% of Kathmandu's population. 68 had gone dry and 45 dhunge dharas were lost entirely. Forty-three were connected to the municipal water supply instead of their original source.Traditional stonespouts , Posted by Administrator of NGOforum.net, 28 September 2010. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
Over the years a number of working dhunge dharas have been modified to better suit the needs of the users. In most cases such modifications included adding one or more large water tanks to store the excess water from the spouts for later use or distribution among the surrounding households. Sundhara in Patan, for instance was augmented with a 25,000 litre underground tank.Traditional Infrastructure, Modern Flows: Cultural Politics of Modernization in the Kathmandu Valley by Olivia Molden, Thesis presented to the Department of Geography and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon, June 2015 Narayan Hiti in Patan is one of the hitis supplied with overhead tanks. And several modern elements have been added to Alko Hiti, like a water tower, underground pipes, rainwater recharge pits and ponds.
In Iku Hiti of Patan, water from the spouts is collected in an 80,000 litres storage tank. From there it is distributed to the surrounding communities by Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited (KUKL), the company dedicated to supplying drinking water in the Kathmandu Valley, in the same way water from regular sources is distributed.Solution to Kathmandu's water crisis by Ranjan Prakash Shrestha and David Seddon, Nepali Times, 31 August 2020, retrieved 24 April 2011
In 2019, a survey by the Kathmandu Valley Water Supply Management Board (KVWSMB) found a total of 573 dhunge dharas on record in the ten municipalities of the Kathmandu Valley. 94 of these dhunge dharas were lost entirely. Of the remaining 479 dhunge dharas, 224 produced water to varying degrees, totalling 2,433,348 litres of water per day at the time of the survey.Stone Spouts and Ponds of Kathmandu Valley: Status Mapping by S.B. Rana, A. Khanal, N. Tiwari, B. Khatiwada, R. Prajapati (eds.), Kathmandu Valley Water Supply Management Board (KVWSMB), Nepal, 2019Kathmandu water spouts, lost and found cases by Purushottam P. Khatri, The Rising Nepal, 1 June 2019, retrieved 6 December 2019
In March 2021, a start was made by the Department of Mines and Geology with using Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to track down lost dhunge dharas.GPR technology being used to trace lost stone spouts by Shaurya Kshatri, The Rising Nepal, 2 March 2021, retrieved 18 July 2022
In March 2022, the dhunge dharas of Kathmandu valley were placed on the 2022 World Monuments Watch by the World Monuments Fund (WMF), an organisation dedicated to raising awareness of culturally important places in the world and supporting the people who care for them.Saving Nepal's hiti heritage, Nepali Times, 7 March 2022, retrieved 30 March 2022Hitis (Water Fountains) of the Kathmandu Valley, 2022 World Monuments Watch, World Monuments Fund, retrieved 30 March 2022
Basic architecture Spouts Dhunge dhara literally means stone spout, but some dhunge dharas are made from other materials like brass, copper, gold and wood.Dhunge Dhara: A Case Study of the Three Cities of Kathmandu Valley by Riddhi Pranhan, Ancient Nepal 116-118, 1990
Most of spouts are in the shape of the mythical makara (also called hitimanga). This is a creature with the snout of a crocodile, the trunk of an elephant, tusks and ears of a wild boar and the tail of a peacock. Hitimangas are ubiquitous in Nepal, not only on hitis, but also on vajras (ritual weapons), toranas (traditional door and window ornaments) and other architectural elements.Picturesque Nepal by Percy Brown, London A. and C. Black, 1912, retrieved 28 September 2019 Nepal Mandala: A Cultural Study of the Kathmandu Valley by Mary Shepherd Slusser, Princeton University Press, 1982, p 154-157
The body of the makara forms an open channel, with a removable cover. The sides of the makara as well as the cover are usually decorated with sculptures of water related symbols and creatures. Often one or more other creatures emerge from the mouth of the makara in a telescopic sequence, for instance a goat, a ram or a bull, out of whose mouth the water eventually flows.
Basin Although the names dhunge dhara and hiti refer to the actual spouts, they are also used for the stone structures immediately surrounding the spouts.
In the Nepalese countryside a hiti may be no more than a stone or brick wall with a spout protruding from it, with some paving beneath the spout. In the cities, due to the natural flow of water (see below), the spouts are located in a basin below street level (hitigah), with the depth depending on need. This basin is built with a combination of stone and brick, where the floor is usually covered with stone slabs. The sides and bottom of the basin are made waterproof by coating them with a layer of kalo mato (a special type of black mud). This prevents water from the surrounding soil from seeping in. Similarly a low wall around the basin helps to keep surface runoff out and prevents debris from being carried in by the wind. Depending on the depth and overall size of the basin it can have terraces on several levels. The hiti can be accessed via one or more stone stairs.
There is typically just one spout in the basin, but there are hitis with two, three, five, nine or more spouts, even up to a hundred and eight (the Muktidhara of Muktinath in Mustang District).
Above the spout there is usually a shrine honoring a specific deity. The space below the spout is (almost without exception) adorned with a sculpture of Bhagiratha. This is especially true for dhunge dharas from the Malla period. Some of the earlier dhunge dharas display a yaksha or a pair of yakhsas, bearing the weight of the spout, instead of a Bhagiratha sculpture.
Depending on the available space, there can be any number of other votive sculptures in the basin. A combination Hindu and Buddhist sculptures, for instance a chaitya next to a lingam, can be found in many dhunge dharas of Nepal.Living Traditions: Aquatic Architecture and Imagery in the Kathmandu Valley by Julia A. B. Hegewald, in: Deepak Shimkhada (ed.), Nepal: Nostalgia and Modernity. Mārg Publications, Mumbai, 2011, p. 37-45,
In front of the spout there is a small pool to catch the water flowing from it. The surplus of water eventually disappears into a drain, and is guided towards another hiti, agricultural land or a pond (to be used for irrigation and other purposes). Sometimes the water is first directed towards several other hitis. In the case of Washa Hiti in Patan, for example, the water is first flowing towards Amrit Hiti, then to Dathu Hiti, then to Buincha Hiti.Shortage in the Mountains of Plenty: Water Supply in Mountain and Hill Cities throughout the Hindu-Kush Himalayan Region by Abigail Snyder, 2014 Borlaug-Ruan International Internship, ICIMOD, Lalitpur, Nepal and The World Food Prize Foundation, Des Moines, Iowa, retrieved 30 September 2019
In some hitis the water from the spout drains into a pond inside the hiti basin itself. Nag Pokhari hiti in Bhaktapur is an example of this. Just as there are hitis with a pond inside them, there are also ponds with spouts integrated into their walls. Bhandarkhal Pokhari in Patan and Salan Ganesh Pokhari in Bhaktapur are some examples.
Several hitis have an integrated stone drinking water reservoir (jahru) built into their walls and some have a well (tun) dug into their basin floor as an alternative means to obtain the available water (see below).Jarunhiti by Akira Furukawa (ed.), Sukra Sagar Shrestha, Amrit Bajracharya and Kanako Ogasawara, Vajra Books, Nepal, 2010,
Subterranean structures