A salt-road town at a holy confluence
Panauti grew as a market and pilgrimage town where rivers met and trade passed. Goods moving between the plains and Tibet, salt among them, came this way, and merchants paid for temples, rest houses and ghats. In 1294 the temple of Indreshwar Mahadev was built here, and its carved struts, with figures of deities and couples, are among the finest early woodwork in Nepal.
Under the Malla kings and later the Shah state, Panauti remained a Newar town with its own festivals, the most famous being the Makar Mela. Every twelve years, in the month of Magh, pilgrims come from across Nepal and India to bathe at the triveni ghat for a whole month. In other years, the confluence still draws crowds on Maghe Sankranti, the first day of Magh.
In 1996 the medieval town was placed on Nepal's tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage status. Indreshwar Mahadev survived the 2015 earthquake, though many houses did not. In recent decades, local women's groups set up a community homestay network, which has brought visitors into family homes and given the town a new income without changing its character.
