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Nepal
Kathmandu:
The
Holy Temple of
the
Living Goddess
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Kathmandu:
The Living Goddess. |
Visiting
Nepal:
Gunnar
Christensen
She's
a little girl called Kumari Ghar living isolated in a beautiful old
Hindu Temple Palace at the famous Hanuman Dhoka in Kathmandu. All the
people worship her. Even the king and the prime minister in Nepal do
so. This because she's the holy, living Goddess.
If you
even try to take a photo of her it means arrest and you'll be thrown
out of the country without your camera. It's however possible to buy
a photo of her with all her cosmetics and best ceremony clothes on in
the souvenir shop near by her temple palace.
5 years old
She is
chosen to be Goddess only 5 years old. Selected from the upper class
daughters in Nepal and it's a status to have a daughter in the family
chosen for this position in the temple. She's chosen in a hard
competition - with many hard tests - together with other children at
the same age.
She
stays in the position as living goddess until she's sexually mature.
Then she retires and her life will change dramatically. She's thrown
out on the street without any support from the temple or her family.
And a new living Goddess will be chosen in her place.
Retired
living Goddess
What
happens to a retired living Goddess I asked the local town guide
chosen to show me around inside the Palace.
- We
better talk about that outside afterwards, he says looking up on the
Living Goddess studying me carefully a floor above. Like a kid
studying a foreign animal in the zoo. The little kid locked inside
this Palace couldn't go out and play like other kids. A few kids were
there to play with her. But she didn't care about them. She was
focused on me and my camera ecvipment. May be she dreamed about going
away to distant countries?
Spoiled
Outside
the guide continues:
- None
wants to marry a retired living Goddess.
- But
why - she looks like a very nice girl? I asked.
-
Because she's a very spoiled girl after the years of temple life.
Everybody serving her all the time you see? And she hasn't learnt
anything except been served: She can't do housework or anything
needed for the family life. Even her family don't want her back. So
most of the retired living Goddess thrown out on the street earlier
work as prostitutes in India.
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