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Published: September 27th 2015
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Postcard of the goddess
I bought this postcard at the Durbar Square Gift Shop. I wouldn't call Nepal weird exactly, but there are one or two things about it that are awfully strange. I mean like, where else can you actually encounter – nay, bask in the radiant splendor of – a living goddess? Which is what we did on a visit to Kathmandu a couple of Saturdays ago (we being my university colleague Dave Penrose, his wife Cecilia, and I).
Saturday is to Nepal what Sunday is to the Christian west, a religious day off when the shops are closed and people have a chance to kick back. For our part, we rented a car and driver and took a tour of the city. First stop, the nation's premier heritage site, Durbar Square or rather, what's left of it. A collection of more than forty temples and monuments, the square was all but obliterated in the April 25th earthquake. Today, most of the rubble has been cleared, and the walls shored.
We were practically the only tourists there, which is sad considering that 86% of Nepal's GDP is derived from tourism. The tourists, however, have for the most part abandoned the country for fear of another quake. By way of
Kumari Ghar
The palace had to be shored up after the earthquake reassurance here, let me state that in the nearly four weeks I've been in country I have yet to feel so much as a tremor.
The square is full of forlorn looking vendors desperate to sell you a souvenir. I bought a pretty yak wool shawl for my wife and a few postcards, but elected to pass on the six bottles of Tiger Balm that one particularly relentless vender tried to sell me. We hired a guide to show us around, and he informed us that today the Kumari, a living goddess, would be making an appearance in her window.
Venerated by both Hindus and Buddhists in Nepal, the Kumari is believed to be the living incarnation of the Goddess Taleju. She's selected from among the prepubescent girls of the Shakya Clan. The Buddha, incidentally, was a Shakya, which explains the sobriquet "Shakyamuni," "Sage of the Shakyas."
To be designated a goddess, a girl must pass a rigorous set of tests. She has to be a virgin, of course, and she can have no evidence of any scaring on her body. She must be able to select from among a number
Entry to the palace
Remarkably, the Kumari Ghar including this lovely entryway, remained intact. Beyond it is a small courtyard where we stood waiting for the goddess to look out her window. of items the personal effects of the previous Kumari. And finally, she must demonstrate absolute fearlessness by sleeping in a room with the severed heads of 108 sacrificial animals, and also by sitting unperturbed through a ritual in which dancers dressed as demons deliberately try to freak her out. If she's chosen, she will spend the remainder of her childhood ensconced in her own private palace, the Kumari Ghar, and be waited on hand and foot.
Speaking of feet, from the moment of her installation to the onset of her first menstruation, her feet will never touch the ground. She is either physically carried or else transported in her own chariot whenever she exits the palace. And, in an annual ritual, the head of state kisses the royal piggies.
Just to catch a glimpse of her is believed to be auspicious for the beholder, so of course we three tourists didn't want to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity. We hurried over to the Kumari Ghar where we were told to put our cameras away. We stood waiting in reverent silence, and then there she was, a pretty little thing of about ten.
Dave Penrose and friend
Penrose is a professor of aquatic ecology at Kathmandu University. For a few Rupees, the sadhu bhaba will let you take his picture. She looked out her window at us and we looked up at her, and then in a twinkling she was gone.
I, of course, could not resist making a few wisecracks to Dave and Cecilia as we walked over to the gift shop to buy postcards ("Maybe I could lend her a few bucks till she gets back on her feet.") But wisecracks aside -- and I know this will sound corny -- somewhere in the murky recesses of my cynical psyche, a part of me was genuinely moved.
This particular girl will continue in her role as goddess until her first period, at which point she will return to civilian life and another girl will take her place. Such a transition won't easy on the girl or her parents ("You may be a goddess, but I'm still your daddy and you'll do as I say, young lady!"). And also, where can you go in life after you've been a goddess adored by an entire nation?
I had a conversation with a young Nepali woman the other night who is studying medicine at Kathmandu University. She told me that one of
Venders
Flower venders wait in the rain for the faithful to buy flower garlands. the doctors there is a former Kumari, so maybe there is life after godhood after all.
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