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Aristu lived amid the rice fields on the far side of Pashupati—a rural area rapidly disappearing as new homes and paved roads filled the valley. Soon the temple grounds will be surrounded by city on three sides, with its back against a golf course and the airport.

“Twenty years ago, my father tells me, the cry of the wolf could be heard here at night,” he said.

Half the hilltop has been preserved as a forest behind a tall iron fence. Some three hundred tiny deer race through the trees. Aristu told me the park was created in honor of Siva, for according to the legend (from the Nepalamahatmya and the Himavatkhanda) Siva came to this hilltop ages ago in order to escape the wearying company of the gods at Varanasi. He disguised himself as a golden deer, and joined the local herd. His wife Parvati, knowing his identity, joined him secretly in the form of a doe. As temple literature coyly describes it, the divine couple “frolicked” here for some time until the other gods tracked them down. In the scuffle to retrieve the recalcitrant Siva, they seized him by the shining horn on his head. It broke into pieces. One of the pieces took the shape of a lingam, and was buried at the spot where the main temple stands today. On it, four faces of Shiva as the god Pashupati have been carved. This is the statue all the people of Kathmandu have come to worship on Sivaratri.

Tradition says the lingam was discovered where the temple now stands when a cowherd found his cow repeatedly dripping her milk onto a certain spot. The local villagers dug up the spot, and uncovered the sacred phallus. The first shrine was built on the site supposedly in the third century. However, historical records indicate it was rebuilt with a golden roof in 1140 A.D. by King Shiva Deva III. But an earlier inscription from 605 A.D. declares that King Amshuvarman was favored by his touching of Pashupati’s feet. This gives historical legitimacy to the idea that Pashupati may have been the tutelary god of the rulers of the Kathmandu valley from ancient times.

The name Pashupati means “Lord of the Animals.” This is Siva’s earliest manifestation, and remains one of his most important throughout the Hindu world. Seals and vessels from the prehistoric Indus Valley Civilization (4500–1900 B.C.) depict him as a cross-legged, horned god with matted hair and erect phallus, flanked by beasts and serpents. This prehistoric version of Pashupati is believed to be connected with nascent forms of yoga. According to early scriptural references, the early followers of Pashupati were yogis—long haired, god-intoxicated ascetics who covered their bodies with ash.

In the second century B.C., a formal Pashupati sect took shape. It was founded by the ascetic Laukulisha, who supposedly died while performing harsh austerities. Siva entered his resurrected corpse and he became a leader of the ascetic devotees of the god. He founded a “City of Siva” that drew more than ten thousand yogis, and forged them into a cohesive sect that endured for over two thousand years. At the heart of the sect was the notion that human civilization covered up the true non-dual nature of reality. And so their yogic practices sought to free one from all social conventions. They let their hair and nails grow to stupendous lengths. They covered their bodies in ash, or else wore tiger skins, or went completely naked. Some even masturbated in public. And so they became known as the Order of Lunatics.

As centuries passed, the Pashupati yogis evolved into three sub-sects: The Kalamukhas—named for the black streak across their face that marked their death and renunciation—were the mildest sect, for they also practiced moral virtues. The Kapalikas abandoned all social and moral codes. They carried with them a bowl made from a human skull from which they ate and drank. They lived in cemeteries, among the dead. Most extreme of all, the Aghoris, the “Non-terrible,” deliberately violated social taboos. They covered themselves in filth, slept on garbage,