Source: International Mission Board, February 26, 2018<\/p>\n
A living goddess sat in a room just above me. I wasn\u2019t allowed to go inside because I\u2019m a foreigner and not Hindu or Buddhist. But I imagined what her childhood will look like now that she has been chosen by a council from her people to be the next in a long line of \u201cliving goddesses.\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s three, you guys. Three. Years. Old. Skipping, plucking wildflowers, and going down to the corner store for sweets are now all out of the question. Seeing her family\u2014that\u2019s now only on festival days.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s known as a kumari, and she is worshipped as what Nepali Hindus believe to be a manifestation of the goddess Durga and Nepali Buddhists believe to be a manifestation of the goddess Vajradevi.<\/p>\n
Once installed as a kumari, the weight of her people\u2019s spiritual needs is placed squarely on her small shoulders. She\u2019ll live in isolation, except when people come to worship her, pay their respects, and ask for healing.<\/p>\n
\u00bb Full story<\/a> describes the life of a kumari and reflects on the practice in light of the gospel as well as current events. See also this interesting story, How Religion Shapes Girls around the World<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: International Mission Board, February 26, 2018 A living goddess sat in a room just above me. I wasn\u2019t allowed to go inside because I\u2019m a foreigner and not Hindu or Buddhist. But I imagined what her childhood will look like now that she has been chosen by a council from her people to be … Continue reading NEPAL: Next Door to a Living Goddess<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7741,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7740\/revisions\/7741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}