The Kathmandu valley’s unique syncretic religious tradition has a way of overwhelming the casual onlooker with its
On the surface, the Kumari is a profound symbol of the recently-extinct royal tradition of the valley, a cultural detritus of the ‘last Hindu kingdom’. But peel off the surface, and the cult reveals layers of meaning that lays it bare as a distinctly Buddhist tradition with a fascinating history. In brief, the cult involves the worship of a young pre-pubescent girl as the manifestation of the supreme feminine power (Shakti) that resides in the valley. From some time towards the end of the 15th century, beginning in Bhaktapur, the three Malla kings of the valley started worshipping kumaris as the physical manifestation of their tutelary tantric goddess, Taleju. Hindu royal migrants to Nepal in the aftermath of the Muslim invasions of 12th century, the Mallas brought with them orthodox Hinduism, imposed the caste system on the predominantly Buddhist Newars of the valley and appropriated their practice of the worship of the tantric goddess Vajrayogini to legitimise their kingship over Nepala mandala.
The context of Tree’s obsession with the Kumari is revealed early in the book when, as a backpacking student in the early ’80s, she saw the Kumari give darshan from her window in the Kumari Chen (house) in Kathmandu’s Durbar Square. During her subsequent travels in the valley in the late ’90s and in the aftermath of the bloody royal massacre of 2001, Tree meticulously upturns every stone possible to get to the heart of the Kumari myth. She approaches her subject like a detective sniffing out clues and following leads. Focussed on Kathmandu but also involving visits to Patan, Bhaktapur and other sites in the valley associated with Kumari worship, Tree meets a vast array of people, both Hindu and Buddhist, over a decade of travels. The most striking people in the book, not surprisingly, are the women. These include many generations of Kumaris (a new kumari is chosen when the current incumbent has her first period), their mothers, sisters, grandmothers and the families that care for the goddesses. The goddesses are always chosen from the Buddhist ‘castes’ of Shakyas and Vajracharyas. Tree takes great pains to dispel — in part through the testimonies of the ex-kumaris themselves — many of the more spurious myths that have grown up around this tradition, especially in the eyes of western commentators. These testimonies also help deepen the reader’s understanding of the cultural basis of goddess worship not just in Nepal in particular, but also as a pan-subcontinental phenomenon.
As Tree’s investigation proceeds, the political situation in Nepal unravels under the despotic regime of King Gyanendra and the Maoist revolution. His ancestor, Prithvi Narayan Shah of Gorkha, had conquered the Kathmandu valley in 1768 through a mix of cunning strategising and destructive ferocity. In doing so, he had hastened the cultural marginalisation of the Newars and their brand of tantric Buddhism. At the other end of the spectrum lies Gyanendra’s hubris and the fall of the Shah kingship, the Living Goddess of Kathmandu playing a large role in both events. This curious parallelism adds to the drama of Tree’s tale.
Tree unearths a lot of fairly unknown facts about Buddhist traditions in the valley — derived largely from final efflorescence of Buddhism in medieval Bengal and Bihar — but sometimes fails to connect the dots. Her less-than-satisfactory grasp of the admittedly dense Vajrayana means that she doesn’t fully comprehend the fact that the Newar tradition of goddess worship is actually a form of religious ‘art’, the legendary Buddhist Upayaor ‘skill in means’ where mantras are employed in conjunction with the ritual use of fabrics, painting and music to visualise and inhabit the deity, be it the Buddha, Vajrayogini or Taleju, for mundane as well as spiritual ends. She also seems a little confused about the central Buddhist concepts of Pragya, Karuna and Upaya.
However, this shouldn’t detract from the fact that this a great story, told with verve and great empathy by Tree. Many writers have been bewitched by the subcontinent’s goddess traditions and have gone on to write great books on them — Bill Aitken’s The Nanda Devi Affair springs to mind — and Tree’s The Living Goddess is a worthy addition. Too often do travellers look at a captivating cultural tradition and fail to investigate the deeper meanings behind the bright façade. Tree is an exception, and her book is all the richer for it.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.