“Master and Novice Monks on the Steps”

After completing their morning alms round, the teacher sits barefoot at the foot of an ancient temple staircase in Bhaktapur Durbar Square, with rows of young novice monks behind him, stretching between stone elephants and lions up toward the shrine. The footsteps that have just moved through the city now come to rest on the worn steps; the formation remains orderly, but the boys’ faces still hold the softness and curiosity of childhood.

Once one of the royal cities of the Kathmandu Valley, Bhaktapur’s bricks and carved stones have carried centuries of processions and earthquakes alike; now they hold a new generation of walkers. For the boys this is a daily lesson, but for the old city it is another return of a morning ritual that has been quietly repeated for hundreds of years.