Commentary on Nepal's Living Goddesses

[Guest guest]

Commentary on the Living Goddess:

Hush! Gods Cannot Die in Nepal

Satis Shroff

The American Chronicle

March 06, 2008

 

The Kumari, who is worshipped as the Living Goddess

in Katmandu, is a small girl who lives in a beautiful

palace with exquisitely carved wooden windows called

the Palace of the Kumari. You can recognise her by her

scarlet sari with golden edges, and her pagoda-formed

jet black hair, which is tied neatly on top. And she wears

the third eye of wisdom on her forehead.

 

The beginnings of the Kumari Cult date back to the 13th

century. A decisive event of the cult took place in 1323

when a king named Hari Singh Deva, who hailed from

North India fled from the Islamic invaders and sought

refuge in Nepal with his family. Among others things

he'd also brought along his family goddess Taleju

Bhavani. Hara Singh soon became the King of

Bhaktapur, and as a consequence Taleju Bhavani

became the ruling Goddess of the town of Katmandu.

Even today, the Kumari remains the most important

Goddess of the Nepalese King, and the protector of

Katmandu Valley.

 

According to a legend delivered 200 years ago, when

Nepal comprised many small independent kingdoms, the

Goddess used to visit one of these kings once in a while.

They used to talk with each other with respect and

played Tripasa, an old dice game in those days. One day

King Jaya Prakash Malla fell unfortunately in love the

Goddess and tried to seduce her, who understandably

felt piqued and insulted, and henceforth didn't pay them

any more visits. She came once in his dream once

though and ordered him to choose a small girl from the

Sakya family, the caste of the Newar goldsmiths of

Kathmandu Valley. The Goddess proclaimed that she

would reside as a reincarnation in the innocent and

virgin body of the Sakya girl. The Goddess Taleju told

him, 'Pray and worship her as Kumari, the Living

Goddess, for when you worship her, you worship me.'

 

As time went on the other kings carried out the tradition

of the Kumari cult, and when you go to Nepal you'll see

and experience this ancient cult even today. The

Katmandu Kumari is the Royal Kumari, and is

worshipped by the King of Nepal, even though the King

has been stripped of his judiciary, legislative and

executive powers, because according to Hindu tradition

the King of Nepal is still regarded as the reincarnation of

Vishnu by the Hindus, the second God of the Hindu

triad (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva). The worshippers of

Vishnu (Bishnu) recognise in him the supreme being

from whom all things emanate. In the epics Mahabharata

and the Puranas, Vishnu is the creator (Prajapati) and

supreme God.

 

It might be noted that last year King Gyanendra insisted

on visiting the Kumari in her palace and worshipped the

Living Goddess, despite the fact that he'd become

unpopular as a monarch with the people of Kathmandu

Valley, and Nepal in general., through his brutal use of

force instead of peaceful democratic dialogue. While

King Birendra, his dead brother, was a popular monarch,

Gyanendra's ascension to Nepal's throne was jinxed

from the beginning and stood under a bad planetary

constellation, as the court astrologer (Raj jotisi) would

put it. King Birendra lost his absolute power in 1990

after a bloody people's revolution. Nepal became

thereafter a parliamentary monarchy, but the

mountainous country became politically unstable. Even

though a Nepalese journalist has written a best-seller in

the country with the title " Rakta Kunda " which threw

light into the working of the blue-blooded royal

denizens of the Narayanhiti Palace, and the palace

murders, it is, nevertheless, not clear who really shot and

eliminated the entire Shah clan [in 2001]. Strangely

enough, King Gyanendra and his family were

conspicuous through their absence during the massacre.

 

It was more a symbolical gesture to appease the people

of Nepal, who were out in the streets along with the

armed and militant Maoists, that King Gyanendra paid

homage to the Living Goddess last year. It seems to

have worked wonders. Some important politicians of the

Congress Party have now expressed their second

thoughts about having the disposed of the King. A pro-

monarchy movement seems to have cropped up in the

Nepalese capital.

 

Now back to the Kumari or Indra Jatra. A jatra is a

religious procession in Nepal and India. 'Who's Indra?'

you might ask. Indra is the God of the firmament, the

personified atmosphere. It is during the Indra Jatra's

third night of festivities that the Shah King of Nepal

visits the Kumari in her palace, which is located near

Basantapur Plaza. This is thought to be not only a

gesture of respect but also evidence that the king holds

no power over the manifestation of Taleju Bhavani. The

Kumari legitimates through this act of granting the King

of Nepal an audience, and applying tika on his forehead,

his rule for a period of one year. And thereby hangs a

tale.

 

'How can one become a Living Goddess?' you might

ask. In order to be a Kumari, the female candidates have

to be three or four years old and must fulfill a row of

conditions that have been set down in the scriptures as

'the list of 32 signs':

 

The virgin has to have well proportioned hands, and feet

like those of a duck. She must have beautifully formed

heels and possess circular lines on the soles of her dainty

feet. Her body has to have the form of saptaccha leaf.

Her cheeks and bosom must resemble that of a lion. The

nape of her neck and throat must be like a conch from

the ocean. She must have forty well-formed, white teeth.

The tongue must be small, wet and sensitive. Her voice

must resemble that of a sparrow. The eyes and eye-

lashes must like those of the holy cow. Her shadow has

to be beautiful and golden hued. The hair has to be

smooth, black and has to fall to the right side. Her

hands, feet and long toes have to be soft and small. She

must have round shoulders and long arms. The body of

the Kumari has to be flawless, sans pockmarks, with a

skim with well-formed pores. She must have a round

head with a high forehead. A resistent body, well-

formed like the nyagrodha tree.

 

 

The girls who possess the 32 outer perfections are

obliged to wait till it becomes dark, so that they can

qualify in the feats in scary full darkness, when normal

three or four year old kids get the creeps and cry for

'Mom' or 'Dad' in the dark, full of fear. But these are

ancient Hindu rituals, customs and traditions in a far-

away land, performed by under the strict supervision of

Buddhist and Hindu priests. The real Kumari is expected

to show her courage by overcoming these terrible,

shocking scenarios that unfurl one after the other

throughout the night, and ferocious growls and noises

made by the hidden priests, and are show terrible and

frightening masks of demons, and the sight of 108

slaughtered buffalo heads dripping with blood. If, and

only if, she doesn't cry is this regarded as one of the

signs of her godliness. Once she has been chosen, she

becomes a Living Goddess, wears the regalia associated

with the Goddess Taleju Bhavani, and presides at the

many Hindu and Buddhist religious ceremonies as the

Living Goddess, till she reaches puberty, when her

hormones take over her physical and psychic

development into a woman, and she menstruates. A

Goddess does not bleed. In case she does, naturally at

puberty or earlier through a fall and subsequent injury,

she becomes a mortal. A bleeding, crying, but perhaps

happy mortal. Gone are the days and nights in the

Kumari Palace, where she blessed all the Hindus,

Buddhist and grey-eyed, blonde haired curious visitors

with their mobilecams and camcorders. A reign without

her parents, following strict rules and regulations comes

to an end. She can find solace in the arms of her parents

and brothers and sisters.

 

The Kumaris receive a small pension after their 'ruling'

periods are over. If a Kumari bleeds when she looses a

tooth, it means she has to leave her throne. The priest

touches six parts of the Kumari's body with a bunch of

grass: the vulva, Labia majoris, the navel, the breast and

the throat. This ritual is meant to transform the body of

the mortal girl to that of a godly one. In Nepal there are

quire a few Kumaris, and three of them are worshipped

with great ceremonies and fanfare in Katmandu,

Bhaktapur (Bhadgaon) and Patan (Lalitpur). But not all

Kumaris live such isolated lives like the Royal Kumari

of Katmandu, who has to be carried by the priests lest

her holy feet be polluted by the filth of the earth trodden

by mortals. Normally, a Sakya Newari girl can be a

Kumari and is respected and worshipped till seven or

eight years. Nevertheless, the Kumari is an institution

based on fragile premises. If a Kumari dies during her

tenure as a Living Goddess, she cannot be reincarnated,

because according to Hinduism a Goddess cannot die.

But weren't King Birendra and Queen Aiyeshwarya and

other members of the divine royal family shot and died

like common mortals? Hush! Gods cannot die in Nepal.

 

When Sajani Sakya, a Kumari, went to the USA on a 39

day trip to attend the screening of a BBC documentary

about her life, some priests headed by Jaiprasad Regmi,

demanded that she be declared a mortal and thus no

longer a Kumari, because a Goddess is not allowed to go

abroad-across the kala pani (black water). A faux pas

that the purity-pollution-thinking priests haven't

forgiven. There is obviously a power play between the

orthodox priests on the one hand, and the democratic,

neo-ethnic federalists, human rights activists, feminists

and Maoists on the other hand. Whereas the priests are

trying to prevent the undermining of their ancient rights

and privileges as mediators between the Gods and

humans, there is an increasing commercialisation of the

revered but poor Living Goddess by the western media.

Instead of centuries of silence as a Kumari, the Living

Goddess of Katmandu might in future give public

human-interest interviews, and exclusive photo

shootings in her new role till the hormones play havoc in

her godly body.

 

Nepal has to go with the times, for the Hindu and

Buddhist worshippers of the Kumari have left the

country and the believers have settled down in foreign

shores, and desire and demand their share of the Heimat,

religion and culture. If the worshippers can't come to the

Goddess Kumari, then the Living Goddess has to go on

tournee across the Seven Seas, kala pani as we call it,

and carry out the panipatya ceremony like generations of

Hindu and Buddhist British Gurkhas have done, when

they return home from their deadly missions abroad

fighting for the Queen of England. I did it too.

 

 

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/54422

 

Satis Shroff is a writer, lecturer and poet based in

Freiburg who also writes on ethno-medical, culture-

ethnological themes for The American Chronicle

(http://www.Amchron.com). He describes himself as a

mediator between western and eastern cultures and sees

his future as a writer and poet.

An anthology of poems and prose 'Katmandu,

Katmandu' (Satis Shroff) can be read at

http://www.Lulu.com/content/247475