June 12, 2019
June 12, 2019
Percolating the Traditional Name used in those days of the Settlement in ancient Lalitpur City, is a fascinating program and very adorable to all the local residents. The program is mainly designed to preserve the historic traditional names of various communities of Lalitpur, which is our settlement identity. Currently, many of our settlements name are reviving by the migration people according to their will, position and power. For example the “Pyia Pukhu” later named as “Prayag Pokhari” at ward – 6, “Matiko” now named as “Batuk Bhairav” at ward – 6, “Dypakhya” transformed to “Devnagar” at ward -9, these are some discontinuation of ancient names. Year by year the names are misleading and transforming into new names, which we can see in the rapid growing areas where sometimes used to have agriculture land of the people living inside the city boundary those days.
Since, Lalitpur is one of the main cities of country and most of the development works in country is focused here. People from various parts of the country migrate here in search of job and better lifestyle, which has led to outside people influencing the culture, tradition, language and lifestyle of the city. Also people from outside start their settlement here and form their new area. They are not aware of the original names of the places which has cultural meanings and according to their settlement, they start naming the places on their own. Various historic places of Lalitpur city has been facing this problem, where the cultural names are not given importance and new names are being kept every day. In various areas the names are miss-spelled in such a way that it is losing its meaning. Lalitpur is one such city of Nepal, which has its unique name and meanings associated with every place, communities, streets and also small alleys. The meaning is very important which is related to culture, history and traditional practices. If we want to preserve its historical traditional and cultural importance, it is vital that we conserve the original names and bring it in practice.
Due to this Centre for Integrated Urban Development (CIUD) and Heritage Conservation and re-construction Center of Lalitpur Metropolitan City (LMC) signed an agreement “Traditional Naming of the Settlements”. In collaboration with LMC, CIUD is implementing the program activities in ten wards (i.e. 5, 6, 9, 12, 16, 19, 20, 22, 28 & 29).
The main objective of this project is to explore the traditional names of the settlement of selected wards, to find out the meanings and importance of the names and also to bring the names into everyday practice in collaboration with Lalitpur Metropolitan City (LMC). The team members have been capacitated to carry out the task in given wards prioritizing the ancient names.
