Ten-year-old Sajani, one of Nepal's top three kumaris, has been touring various cities abroad since last month to promote a documentary film about the Kumari of the Kathmandu Valley.
Sajani arrived in Washington to help promote a British documentary about the living goddesses of the Katmandu Valley and to see a bit of the United States. She is the first of the Nepalese living goddesses to come to the United States because the girls live mostly in seclusion.
Her trip has made news in the US, but caused problems at home because kumaris are forbidden to leave Nepal
In Nepal, Sajani is a living goddess, one of about a dozen such goddesses in her homeland who are considered earthly manifestations of the Hindu goddess Kali.
Her typical day is, when she has to rise early for her family and others to pray to her. It was difficult for her when she was younger. She had to get up at 4 to bathe for the morning prayers.
Sajani never gets into trouble. In fact, her family worships her, and if she is in a bad mood, it becomes a major drama because it's considered bad luck.
The goddesses of Katmandu are chosen when they are about 2 years old from a Buddhist caste, though they represent a Hindu deity - an example, of the harmony between the two religions in Nepal.
The king of Nepal has traditionally sought the blessings of the three main goddesses, who live in Katmandu, Patan and, in Sajani's case, the city of Baktapur. Hindu and Buddhist priests pick the living goddesses after consulting a horoscope and then finding a girl who meets the 32 perfections, from skin of golden color to a body like a banyan tree.
Devotees believe that the goddess Kali inhabits the girls, though they do not exhibit unusual behavior, and then the goddess leaves them when they reach puberty. After that, the girls retire with a small pension. They are free to work and marry.
People go to the goddesses to touch their feet as they are carried through the streets. They give them money as offerings, which in Sajani’s case go to support her family. They visit Sajani in the goddess's house, where she sits on a small ornate throne, to ask for a better job, better health, a measure of happiness. The girls are not expected to impart wisdom, they give just blessings.
People relate to her as a divine being but also as a child: they pray to her, but afterwards they sit and joke with her. There is something very comforting about worshiping a child, something about the cycle of life, about renewal.
The goddesses are busiest in late autumn, during the festival of Dasain. The royal goddess in Katmandu and the other in Patan live in varying degrees of seclusion.
Sajani has the most normal life, blessing those who show up, but also playing with friends and going to school, where she is treated with respect, though not assured of straight A’s.
She plays hide-and-seek, computer games, watches Hindi films and, as the film shows, fiddles with a toy cell phone sometimes when she is on her throne
Sajani knows she has only a few years left before she must retire. She says she would like to be a teacher someday, but she cries with her mother over the loss of her life as a goddess.
"When I'm not a goddess anymore," she said, "no one will treat me as well as they treat me now."
Source: http://www.iht.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment