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KATHMANDU, NEPAL, September 5, 2003: Next Tuesday, tourists in Nepal will have the rare opportunity of seeing a living Goddess. Normally, the Kumari appears for tourists through an intricately carved window at her residence in the Hanumandhoka palace square. But for the past six months six-year-old Preeti Sakya — the living Hindu Goddess or Kumari — has been hidden away because of a row with the Kathmandu municipality. Her guardians say she should receive a fair share of the fee tourists pay for entry to the historic palace square. Municipal officials say they have to use the proceeds of the US$2.50 fee to maintain the world heritage-listed site. For one day, at least, tourists will be able to see the Kumari when she is borne in a palanquin in a religious procession through Kathmandu. According to the 300-year-old tradition, a girl from the Sakya caste of the Newari community in the Kathmandu Valley is selected through rigorous tests. She remains the Goddess until puberty and is called upon to give blessings to Nepal’s Hindus and Buddhists — and even the king. “It is unfair,” says Gautam Sakya, one of the guardians. “The municipality earns in the name of Kumari, yet we do not get anything to maintain the rituals associated with her.” The guardians insist that the local body should pay them at least 10 percent of its annual earnings of a little over $200,000. Before the municipality began charging tourists the entrance fee two years ago, foreign visitors were allowed to see the Kumari and offered money individually.

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