There is a palace at Kathmandu Durbar that is actually still in use. The inhabitant of the palace is called, "Kumari Devi". The Kumari is a young Newari girl from a certain clan, who is considered to be an incarnation of the goddess Taleju. It would seem that a number of cities in Nepal each have a Kumari, but the Royal Kumari resides in Kathmandu.
The present incarnation is about seven years old. While this young girl is hosting the living goddess, she lives on the third floor of her palace and only comes out into the public about four times a year. During her "reign" she never touches the ground, but is carried whenever she leaves her palace. She doesn't wear shoes either, which I thought was strange(especially in the winter) until it was explained to me that the reason she doesn't wear shoes is so that her followers can receive a full blessing from kissing her feet. She does have a golden window (seen in the photo) that she can look out of at certain times (but she was not interested in the foreigners visiting the courtyard that day). Her daily routine is supposedly taking up with studying (this is a modern day concession) and special visits with faithful admirers. She has a tutor plus a group of guardian priestesses that attend to her every need. She is allowed the occasional playmate, who is handpicked, but she is quite busy with blessing and healing her followers most of the time.
When the young girl reaches puberty, the goddess moves on to the next young virgin. The whole religious community goes into a frenzy trying to find out which young girl Taleju was decided to indwell next. There are a couple of girls selected as possible candidates (usually around the age of four or five) that must go through some rigorous testing before being able to take the title of Kumari Devi.
I did ask what became of the young woman, who was the Kumari and now has been discarded by the goddess. The answer was that she goes to school like everyone else her age. Oh!
The present incarnation is about seven years old. While this young girl is hosting the living goddess, she lives on the third floor of her palace and only comes out into the public about four times a year. During her "reign" she never touches the ground, but is carried whenever she leaves her palace. She doesn't wear shoes either, which I thought was strange(especially in the winter) until it was explained to me that the reason she doesn't wear shoes is so that her followers can receive a full blessing from kissing her feet. She does have a golden window (seen in the photo) that she can look out of at certain times (but she was not interested in the foreigners visiting the courtyard that day). Her daily routine is supposedly taking up with studying (this is a modern day concession) and special visits with faithful admirers. She has a tutor plus a group of guardian priestesses that attend to her every need. She is allowed the occasional playmate, who is handpicked, but she is quite busy with blessing and healing her followers most of the time.When the young girl reaches puberty, the goddess moves on to the next young virgin. The whole religious community goes into a frenzy trying to find out which young girl Taleju was decided to indwell next. There are a couple of girls selected as possible candidates (usually around the age of four or five) that must go through some rigorous testing before being able to take the title of Kumari Devi.
I did ask what became of the young woman, who was the Kumari and now has been discarded by the goddess. The answer was that she goes to school like everyone else her age. Oh!
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