Eye of the goddess

The Kathmandu valley&rsquos unique syncretic religious tradition has a way of overwhelming the casual onlooker with its dense layers of imagery and symbolism. Isabella Tree&rsquos new book gets to the heart of one of the valley&rsquos central religious traditions &mdash the cult of the Kumari, or the Living Goddess.

On the surface, the Kumari is a profound symbol of the recently-extinct royal tradition of the valley, a cultural detritus of the &lsquolast Hindu kingdom&rsquo. 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&rsquos obsession with the Kumari is revealed early in the book when, as a backpacking student in the early &rsquo80s, she saw the Kumari give darshan from her window in the Kumari Chen (house) in Kathmandu&rsquos Durbar Square. During her subsequent travels in the valley in the late &rsquo90s 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 &lsquocastes&rsquo of Shakyas and Vajracharyas. Tree takes great pains to dispel &mdash in part through the testimonies of the ex-kumaris themselves &mdash 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&rsquos understanding of the cultural basis of goddess worship not just in Nepal in particular, but also as a pan-subcontinental phenomenon.

Tree unearths a lot of fairly unknown facts about Buddhist traditions in the valley &mdash derived largely from final efflorescence of Buddhism in medieval Bengal and Bihar &mdash but sometimes fails to connect the dots. Her less-than-satisfactory grasp of the admittedly dense Vajrayana means that she doesn&rsquot fully comprehend the fact that the Newar tradition of goddess worship is actually a form of religious &lsquoart&rsquo, the legendary Buddhist Upayaor &lsquoskill in means&rsquo 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&nbspand Upaya. 

However, this shouldn&rsquot 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&rsquos goddess traditions and have gone on to write great books on them &mdash Bill Aitken&rsquos The Nanda Devi Affair&nbspsprings to mind &mdash and Tree&rsquos The Living Goddess&nbspis a worthy addition. Too often do travellers look at a captivating cultural tradition and fail to investigate the deeper meanings behind the bright fa&ccedilade. Tree is an exception, and her book is all the richer for it.