{"id":733,"date":"2008-06-10T14:36:23","date_gmt":"2008-06-10T14:36:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2008\/06\/nepals-living-goddess-traditio.php"},"modified":"2008-06-10T14:36:23","modified_gmt":"2008-06-10T14:36:23","slug":"nepals-living-goddess-traditio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/06\/nepals-living-goddess-traditio","title":{"rendered":"Nepal&#8217;s &#8216;Living Goddess&#8217; Tradition in Limbo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By Achal Narayanan<br \/>\nReligion News Service<\/em><br \/>\nChennai, India &#8211; The appointment of a new &#8220;living goddess&#8221; in Nepal has been held up by the recent abolition of the Hindu monarchy in the Himalayan nation, according to Nepalese officials.<br \/>\nTraditionally, the palace priest appoints the girl, who is chosen in her infancy and is treated as a Kumari, or goddess, until puberty. But the priest no longer has any authority in the newly proclaimed secular republic, the head of the trust overseeing the tradition says.<br \/>\nA six-year-old girl was recently selected by a religious panel as the &#8220;living goddess&#8221; in the temple town of Bhaktapur, near the capital of Kathmandu.<br \/>\nThe head of the trust overseeing the Kumari tradition told the BBC that because the royal priest no longer has any role in the matter, the chairman of the trust&#8217;s board will have to decide who would approve the new living goddess.<br \/>\nThe previous Kumari, 11-year-old Sajani Shakya, was one of the three most revered Kumaris in Nepal until she was abruptly retired in March.<br \/>\nLast summer she was nearly sacked from her position after traveling to the United States to promote a new documentary about the Kumaris of Nepal. After threatening to strip the girl of her title, Nepalese authorities later agreed to a &#8220;cleansing&#8221; ceremony.<br \/>\n<em>Copyright 2008 Religion News Service.  All rights reserved.  No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Achal Narayanan Religion News Service Chennai, India &#8211; The appointment of a new &#8220;living goddess&#8221; in Nepal has been held up by the recent abolition of the Hindu monarchy in the Himalayan nation, according to Nepalese officials. Traditionally, the palace priest appoints the girl, who is chosen in her infancy and is treated as&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Nepal&#039;s &#039;Living Goddess&#039; Tradition in Limbo<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/06\/nepals-living-goddess-traditio\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nepal&#039;s &#039;Living Goddess&#039; Tradition in Limbo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Achal Narayanan Religion News Service Chennai, India &#8211; The appointment of a new &#8220;living goddess&#8221; in Nepal has been held up by the recent abolition of the Hindu monarchy in the Himalayan nation, according to Nepalese officials. Traditionally, the palace priest appoints the girl, who is chosen in her infancy and is treated as&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/06\/nepals-living-goddess-traditio\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-06-10T14:36:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"akornfeld\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Nepal's 'Living Goddess' Tradition in Limbo","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/06\/nepals-living-goddess-traditio","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Nepal's 'Living Goddess' Tradition in Limbo","og_description":"By Achal Narayanan Religion News Service Chennai, India &#8211; The appointment of a new &#8220;living goddess&#8221; in Nepal has been held up by the recent abolition of the Hindu monarchy in the Himalayan nation, according to Nepalese officials. Traditionally, the palace priest appoints the girl, who is chosen in her infancy and is treated as&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/06\/nepals-living-goddess-traditio","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2008-06-10T14:36:23+00:00","author":"akornfeld","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/06\/nepals-living-goddess-traditio","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/06\/nepals-living-goddess-traditio","name":"Nepal's 'Living Goddess' Tradition in Limbo","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-06-10T14:36:23+00:00","dateModified":"2008-06-10T14:36:23+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/da3acea0a48aaeb7e77474c2f29f849a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/06\/nepals-living-goddess-traditio#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/06\/nepals-living-goddess-traditio"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/06\/nepals-living-goddess-traditio#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Nepal&#8217;s &#8216;Living Goddess&#8217; Tradition in Limbo"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/da3acea0a48aaeb7e77474c2f29f849a","name":"akornfeld","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dd2\/dd26f111fd1fab06b546769e3bf834f3x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dd2\/dd26f111fd1fab06b546769e3bf834f3x96.jpg","caption":"akornfeld"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/akornfeld"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}