NEPAL, December 29, 2023 (The National News by Stuart Butler): The Kumari is a young Newari girl who is believed to have been possessed by the Goddess Taleju (Durga); the Newari are the people of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal. She is worshiped by Newari Buddhists and Hindus as a manifestation of divine female energy. Always a young girl, the selection process to become a Kumari is rigorous. The girl must be unblemished and not yet have lost any of her milk teeth. As soon as she hits puberty, she is replaced with a new Kumari. The tradition goes back several hundred years and each of the three main towns of the Kathmandu Valley – Kathmandu itself, Patan and Bhaktapur – have their own Kumari. But, one day, as I walk around the old quarter of Patan, I look up and something catches my eye. I point out the building to my Nepalese friend, who says, “Oh, yes. That’s the old Kumari’s home”. “The lady who lives there used to be the living goddess of Patan. Many people here say that she is still the real Kumari. Her name is Dhana Kumari Bajracharya,” he says, before suggesting we try to visit her and rings the doorbell.

“She’s my auntie,” says Chanira Bajracharya, the young woman who opens the door to us. “She was chosen to be the Kumari in 1952, when she was just two years old. She is unusual in that she has never reached puberty and so has never officially stopped being a Kumari. Taking a sip of my tea, I ask Chanira if it was strange to live under the same roof as a Kumari. “Oh no. Not at all. I’m completely used to it. You see, I used to be a Kumari as well,” she says. “Our family is very unusual in having produced two Kumaris. Between the ages of five and 15, I was the Kumari and my Auntie helped me a lot in dealing with the special, privileged life of a Kumari. “Some people say that the tradition of the Kumari is cruel to children. But I enjoyed it and I think I have been left with a higher spiritual knowledge than most people. Plus, I did very well at school because I was privately educated. It was a blessing to be chosen as the Kumari.” How did it feel when the spirit of the Goddess finally left her and she once again returned to being just an average person, I ask. “My mum tried to prepare me for life when I was no longer a Goddess, but it was still a shock when it came,” she says. I agree that this dramatic change must have been a shock and I wonder what – if anything – an ex-Goddess does afterwards to earn a living? She chuckles as she replies. “I’m a credit analyst. I studied at the top university in Nepal and now I work for a company in Australia.”

More at source.
https://www.thenationalnews.com/weekend/2023/12/29/kumari-living-goddess-nepal/

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