3:45 AM
I read on the National Geographic�s website that Nepal has just chosen a new Kumari, the living goddess, a few days ago. The Kumari is essentially Nepal�s virgin goddess, whose body houses the spirit of Taleju (an incarnation of Goddess Durga).
There are stringent rules for a girl to be chosen as a Kumari. She must belong to the Shakya clan (a community of goldsmiths), her family must be extremely pious Hindus, she must have 32 characteristics of physical perfection (including a set of 40 teeth), and she has to prove her fearlessness by spending a night in a dark room with decapitated carcasses.
The chosen Kumari will be taken away from her family (it�s a huge honor), declared a living goddess, and installed in her royal chambers. She will not talk to ordinary mortals, her feet won�t touch the ground and she won�t venture out of her palace more than a handful of times a year. She loses her status with the onset of puberty, and returns to her family.
To me, taking a child away from his or her parents is cruel, but I can't judge whether the Kumari tradition constitutes child abuse or not. With many traditions that are not ours, Western sensibilities frequently over-react, and we view such practices through our own set of prisms. However, there are also a number of Nepali organizations that criticize the Kumari tradition, and I feel these are the best suited to do so and are the most qualified to establish a dialogue between traditionalists and modernists.
A National Geographic video can be seen here
Posted in: Events,Nepal
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