SEVERAL years ago, I had the privilege of coming face to face with Kumari, the living child goddess of Nepal.

Wikipedia tells us that there are several legends about the origin of the Kumari, but the most popular seems to the one that leads back to a Nepalese Hindu king of the Malla dynasty. He was with Taleju, a warrior goddess, when a red serpent approached the royal chamber. At that point, the king began to notice what a beautiful creature Taleju was, her beauty surpassing even that of his own wife.

My trip to Nepal brought me and the other members of our tour group closer to the extraordinary tradition and culture of the Nepalese people. The tour itself had its highpoints and low points and I recollect how we slept in palace-like accommodation on most nights yet almost froze to death in what one group member described as a ‘refugee camp’ on New Year’s Eve within sight of the magnificent Mount Everest; how we feasted like kings and queens indoors while just outside leprous women held out fingerless hands to beg; how when another group member (me) injured his foot stepping on a nasty and very rusty nail within the hotel premises, the hotel management offered to call a doctor for a visitation fee of US$40 to be fully defrayed by the patient who eventually received an injection and treatment from a doctor in town 4 kilometres away, and was charged Rs 40 (about RM2); and how members of the tour were so moved with compassion over the poverty of the village children who did not have enough basic things such as pencils, papers, sandals (never mind shoes) and even toilet papers.

According to Wikipedia, the amorous thoughts of the king, however, were seen through by the goddess who was also angered by his unwelcome lecherous glances. She rebuked the king for his lustful thoughts and, in a fit of chaste fury, disappeared from his sight.

Before the sun had even risen on Day One of the tour, we had our first major disappointment when we were told by the local representative at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport that we would not be staying at the magnificent 5-star Hyatt Regency in Kathmandu as indicated in our tour programme, but at

another place called the Yak & Yeti. She topped the bad news with another, that because our group comprised less than 15 people, we would not be accompanied by a company representative from Malaysia on our tour. “Company policy.”

In desperation and pleading remorse, the king sought her return. Taking pity on him, Taleju finally agreed to make herself visible to him again but on one condition. She would appear only as a young girl so that his amorous intentions could be held in check. Thus, she turned herself into a child goddess.

We arrived in Kathmandu smack into a lunchtime traffic jam and were met by a cheerful and good looking local guide. The Yak & Yeti turned out to be a huge casino-hotel fashioned out of a former palace, and that it was situated in the city was an advantage.

Lunch was a ten-course affair at a nearby Chinese restaurant (yes, they did have Chinese restaurants in Kathmandu!), after which we were released in the direction of Thamel, a well known tourists’ area ten minutes’ walk from our hotel. Thus, we broke into two’s and three’s and

headed for our first heavy dosage of narrow streets and chaotic traffic and Kathmandu city dust. With horns blaring all around and bicycles and rickshaws weaving to the left and right of us, we somehow miraculously managed to avoid being knocked down by a car or a taxi as we jostled our way through the hundreds of stalls in Thamel.

True to this tradition, somewhere in Kathmandu today, there is a temple called the Temple of the Living Goddess (‘Kumari Ghar’) wherein resides a girl not more than six or seven years old as Kumari (literally: ‘virgin’) the Child Goddess.

Immediately after sunset, we were caught by surprise at the rapid rate with which the evening temperature fell, and as we had been out without our jackets since lunch, some of us (including yours truly) were visibly trembling in our pants with cold. We were relieved to meet up again as a group with our guide for dinner at a well appointed restaurant called the Rum Doodle. It had a prominent fireplace surrounded by hundreds of ‘footprints’ containing written testimonies of past visitors, including a very interesting ‘Everest Summiteers Corner’ where such names as Bonington, Norgay, and Mallory were evident.

One of the places we visited the next day was a Hindu temple called the Temple of Wishes atop a hill across the river. Devotees could travel by cable car, saving themselves a three-hour trek. There, we spotted three men moving a goat to the cable car station, to have it sacrificed at the Temple of Wishes. The poor creature, bleating its lungs out, probably knew what was coming, for it had to be pulled from the front and pushed from the rear with both its hind legs lifted up like a wheelbarrow.

In Kathmandu, we visited a Durbar Square (durbar: old palace). Each durbar square was full of temples and shrines, certainly a

place of tremendous religious faith and significance. I noticed a string of buffaloes’ intestines decking a door leading to a ‘chowk’ (courtyard). That, I was told, came from an animal sacrificed inside the chowk. I wondered then where the intestine of the poor bleating goat back at the previous temple would be hanging now.

It was at the Kathmandu Durbar Square that the Kumari Ghar or the Temple of the Living Goddess was located. There, after a briefing on the Living Goddess, we asked the resident priest (through our guide) if she was in and he said yes. We then asked if we could take a look at her and he nodded an affirmative! Then before any of us could say ‘Indiana Jones’, a little girl popped her face out from a

first-floor window! To our amazement, she was truly just a six or seven year old girl, but very prettily dolled up. She was dressed in red, wore her hair in a topknot and had the ‘fire eye’ painted on her forehead. These, we were told, were compulsory ingredients in her dress code as Kumari. The ‘fire eye’ on her forehead was the symbol of her special powers of perception.

The Living Goddess is chosen by the priests through a very rigorous selection process involving a set of attributes of perfection, her ability to remain calm when placed in a dark room with terrifying noises, and the sight of buffalo heads in a courtyard (‘chowk’) at night with masked men prancing about. Her horoscope and family background are also checked. Once chosen, she would reign as the child goddess until she reaches puberty, at which time it is believed that the goddess Taleju vacates her body.

The little girl who has reigned as Kumari would then be relieved of her reign to live a ‘normal’ life again and a new goddess chosen. For her to live a ‘normal’ life again after her reign as a Living Goddess is hardly possible because no boys would dare to marry her.

Today, many Hindu girls are named Kumari.