Continuation of the Ninth Day: The Living Goddess Kumari and Emergence of the Nine Durgas

The ninth day of Mohani, which had been introduced with the events of the previous night, is the climax to the events of the first eight days. On this day the sequence of daily processions to the pithas of the Mandalic^[*] Goddesses reaches its central focus; the work at the Na:la swa(n) rooms comes to a climax; the living goddess Kumari makes her first major public appearance;^[63] and the Nine Durgas reappear, entering once again into the annual cycle, and preparing to carry forward the powerful meanings of Mohani.

The Mandalic^[*] Goddess of this day is the civic mandala's^[*] central goddess Tripurasundari. As we have discussed in chapter 8, she is not one of the host of goddesses of the Devi Mahatmya . In contrast to the peripheral Mandalic^[*] Goddesses who are, in their Devi Mahatmya versions at least (although not, necessarily, in other Puranic^[*] treatments), partial and limited goddesses, Tripurasundari represents the goddess as the full creator deity. Thus, as we have noted, she is not only a local areal Mandalic^[*] Goddess in her own right, but as the center of the mandala^[*] she concentrates and contains the partial forces of the peripheral goddesses in the same way that the Devi of the Devi Mahatmya does in that vivid narrative expression of this fundamental South Asian conception. In its focus on Tripurasundari the ninth day represents a completion of one important aspect of the cycle, while the tenth day, which returns once more to the first peripheral goddess Brahmani, is an opening out into the succeeding phase. The morning and evening processions to and worship of the Tripurasundari pitha is exactly like the worship

of the Mandalic^[*] Goddesses of the prior eight days. There is a morning procession to her tirtha (which is at the river at Khware),^[64] followed by worship at her pitha . In the evening great masses of people walk to the pitha again with flower offerings. After the evening pilgrimage people will go to view the new masks of the Nine Durgas, which are the first public signs of their reappearance after their long sleep.

On returning home in the morning from their visit to the Tripurasundari pitha , people go to worship in their Na:la swa(n) rooms. This is the one time in the year in which all Hindu Newars in Bhaktapur are expected to perform a blood sacrifice. For the very poorest people it may be the presentation of only an egg; others will offer a chicken or a duck, but, for those who can afford it, the ideal sacrificial animal is a male goat.^[65] The sacrificial animal's head is kept and will be presented as siu , the hierarchically distributed parts of the head (chap. 9), during the family feast, which will be held on the tenth and final day.

While these sacrifices are going on in households throughout the city there is a sacrifice of a number of goats and buffaloes on Bhaktapur's Laeku Square. This is done by members of the Nepalese army, with accompanying rituals performed by non-Newar Brahmans.^[66] These public ceremonies are considered to have been introduced after the time of the Malla kings. Although the Taleju sacrifices of the Kalaratri and, in fact, of the Mohani period^[67] had previously come to an end, the Na:la swa(n) room sacrifices, and Laeku Square sacrifices, are considered to be representations of the ongoing mythic battle.

Associated with the Na:la swa(n) worship of this day is the worship of household members' tools and implements of trade. Some of these may be brought into the Na:la swa(n) room, but the larger implements are worshiped at their usual locations. Potters worship their wheels, women their looms, farmers and dyers their special tools, truck drivers their trucks, and so forth. The implements are thought of sometimes as Devi, sometimes as Visvakarma, whom the Puranas^[*] describe as "the inventor of innumerable kinds of handicrafts, the architect of the gods, maker of all kinds of ornaments, and the most famous sculptor" (Mani 1975, 869). Blood sacrifices are generally made to the tools.^[68]

As we have noted (chap. 8), Bhaktapur gives the same name to, and in part condenses,^[69] Kaumari, the Mandalic^[*] Goddess derived from the Devi Mahatmya and other lists of Matrkas, and Kumari, the maiden goddess. Worship of the latter form is commonly associated with the

South Asian Dasai(n) Festival. The Devi Bhagavata Purana^[*] , for example, specifies that young girls (in this case at two years of age) should be worshiped during the Navaratri puja . Traditionally for South Asia—and reflected in the events of the day in Bhaktapur—"there are no hard and fast rules as to how many Kumaris should be worshiped and as to the manner and method of the worship. . .. Age alone does not render [a] Kumari suitable for worship. They should be absolutely free from [skin] ulcers, leprosy, ugliness, squint-eyes, dwarfishness, lameness, bad odor, stigma of low birth, etc." (Mani 1975, 439). Chakravarty, however, writing of Kumari worship, emphasizes the unimportance of the "stigma of low birth." "Maidens of all castes not exceeding sixteen years in age may be worshipped without making any distinction of caste" (1972, 81). He adds that in contrast to the sometimes "hidden ritualistic orgies" that sometimes accompany the Tantric tradition of the worship of adult women "as forms of the Mother Goddess," the worship of the child Kumari is "quite sober."

Kumari worship, as the worship of girls who become princess-like "living Kumaris,"^[70] is highly developed in the three old Newar royal cities, and has been a subject of scholarly as well as popular interest.^[71] The various major "living Kumaris" of the Kathmandu Valley are really a heterogeneous group, Bhaktapur's main one differing, for example, in status and conditions of her life from the major Kathmandu Kumari.

On the morning of this ninth day, after completing the blood sacrifice and worship in the Na:la swa(n) room, most families at some other location in the house worship the young, premenstrual girls in the family. They may worship one girl alone as Kumari,^[72] and, sometimes, if there is more than one girl, as some set of goddesses. Thus three girls may represent the set of goddesses Mahalaksmi^[*] , Mahakali, and Mahasarasvati, or nine girls, the Nine Mandalic^[*] Goddesses. However the family girls worshiped, whatever their symbolism as a group, are thought of individually as Kumari. It is said that the motive of these pujas on this day is not to honor the girls, but to use them as vehicles to bring the Goddess into the home.

Kumari as a "living goddess" is worshiped in two representations at the Taleju Temple during the course of the day. In the first and less elaborate representation she is one member of the Gana^[*] Kumari,^[73] the "retinue" of Kumari. This troupe consists of eleven young children of the high-status Buddhist Bare thar , the same thar that provides the main Kumari.^[74] These children are selected each year (a child may be reselected in succeeding years) by the Bare themselves and will have no

further ceremonial role to play, at least in the Hindu life of the city, aside from on this day. Two of them are boys representing, respectively Ganesa^[*] and Bhairava.^[75] The nine girls in the group represent the nine Mandalic^[*] Goddesses, with the exception that the girl who represents the ninth goddess is not Tripurasundari, but a goddess of esoteric importance in the Taleju temple, Ugracandi. In the course of their preparation and dressing by the Bare, monhi (the pigment derived from lamp black, and which is of Tantric importance for facilitating possession by a deity), which has been sent from the Taleju temple, is placed on the foreheads of the children. Members of the Taleju staff go to the Dipankara vihara , a Buddhist religious and social community in the northeastern part of the city, to conduct the Gana^[*] Kumari to the Taleju temple. The king waits at an intermediate place along the processional route in the Sukuldhoka neighborhood and joins Kumari and his envoys there for the return to the Taleju temple. The details of this procession and its membership and procedures are generally the same as the one that will fetch the main Kumari, the Ekanta Kumari, later in the day, and will be described below. But in contrast with procedures for the selection of the Ekanta Kumari, the members of the Gana^[*] Kumari group are selected and inspected for the proper physical state (whose characteristics we will note in connection with the main Kumari) by members of the Bare thar without having to have any additional examination and confirmation by Taleju priests.

The children are greeted at a special Kumari god-house in the Kwache(n) twa: by the delegation. Each one of them is taken and carried by a Jyapu woman (of one of the Jyapu groups traditionally associated with the Taleju temple) who carries them in her arms in a procession. They are first brought to the outside courtyard of the Taleju temple, and then with a greeting and purifying ceremony, the lasakusa , led into the main inner courtyard. The king welcomes them there and washes their feet, as he would visiting deities. The children are then led to a room within the temple on the northeast part of its upper floor, where they are worshiped by the king and the Taleju priests, and by members of the Malla and Pradhananga^[*]thars . These are descendants of the Malla kings, whose lineage goddess is, thus, Taleju.^[76] In the course of the worship these living deities are asked to destroy the power of the Asura enemies of the king and the city. The king is considered the main worshiper, and the worship is for his protection as ruler and for the protection of the city. In contrast with the main Kumari, there is no legendary explanation of this group known to us (although, as we have

noted, such groupings of deities are elsewhere in South Asia associated with Dasai[n]), but the gathering of these representatives of the Mandalic^[*] Matrkas into the Taleju Temple signifies not only the gathering together of the areal forces but also their association with and (as the subsequent Kumari worship indicates more clearly) their incorporation into the power and centrality of Taleju herself.

As they will with the main Kumari later in the day, the priests watch the behavior of the child deities for omens—messages from the deities. While the later omens from the main Kumari will be messages for the king himself concerning his own fate, these are considered messages for the people, for the city in general. That is, this group of Mandalic^[*] Goddesses, plus Ganesa^[*] and Bhairava, speak to and about the city, while the lone Kumari, who, as we will see later, is a manifestation of Taleju herself, speaks to the king, as the personification of traditional political power. It is the function of the main Taleju Josi to interpret the signs. In contrast to the main Kumari, who tends to act seriously in her role as goddess, the child deities of this group usually act like a group of children. They laugh, sometimes fight, tell the priests that they want to go to the toilet or want to go home. The omens are fairly generalized and simple to interpret. If the children fight or cry, it is a bad sign. If they laugh too much or act foolishly, it is also unpropitious, as it would be if they refused food offerings made to them or if they accept them but then eat them too hungrily or with evident greed. The ideal portent, in short, is if they behave properly as guests at a feast.

In contrast to the Gana^[*] Kumari, the main living Kumari (see fig. 32) has her local legends. She is sometimes called the "Ekanta Kumari," the lone or solitary Kumari, to distinguish her from other forms,^[77] but more usually just Kumari. For local informants "Ekanta" implies, in reference to Kumari, that she is the "sole goddess," that is, the Goddess in her full and complete form, as is Taleju, whom she represents.

The Malla kings of Bhaktapur, the story goes, used to talk freely with the goddess Taleju, who often appeared to them in her divine form. One day the goddess saw the king watching her in the way a spy does when trying to discover something about someone without their knowing about it, something that they may wish to hide. Because of this Taleju became angry at the king, and said she would not return anymore. He pleaded with her to come again to him. She said, "Because of what you did I will never appear to you again. But I will talk to you now in the body of a candala^[*] , an untouchable girl." There are other versions of the

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Figure 32.
The living goddess Kumari. People are making offerings and receiv-
ing prasada.

story, but they differ principally in the reason given for the anger of Taleju. Thus, in another telling, the king had a diamond that he cherished. Taleju advised him to keep that diamond secret from everyone. But one day the king's daughter somehow saw the diamond. Taleju became angry and the rest of the story followed.^[78] These stories go on to say that when the king told the Brahmans what had happened, they said, "We cannot bring a Po(n) girl (Bhaktapur's equivalent of a candala^[*] ) here into the temple, but we can choose a Bare's daughter." Thus the water-unacceptable Bare became, according to these Hindu legends,^[79] a compromise substitute for the truly unclean girl with which the angry Taleju—and the Tantric tradition—threatened priestly Bhaktapur.

The child who is the Ekanta Kumari always comes from the same Bare lineage group. She is selected by members of that group among the girls of their phuki . She is usually about six or seven years of age (and thus premenarche) and must not yet have had her Ihi , mock-marriage, ceremony. She must not have lost any teeth (which is one reason that seven is a critical age), nor have any obvious physical defects or blemishes. In contrast to the living Kumaris of Patan and Kathmandu, who maintain their role as goddess for several years and who will find themselves in a permanently altered and disadvantaged state after their tenure as goddess (for they will be unable to marry), the Bhaktapur Kumari plays her part for only a year or two, and lives an ordinary Newar life after it is finished. Furthermore, her only function for the city as a whole is on this and the following day of Mohani, although she is an occasional focus of worship from time to time in her local area, where she and her family will inhabit the nearby special god-house of the living Kumari, in a place called "Casukhel," during her tenure.^[80] Even during this period, however, when not at the center of local worship she can play with other children and go to school.

In contrast with the children of the Gana^[*] Kumari, whose physical propriety was not checked by the Taleju staff, the Ekanta Kumari is checked three times prior to the ninth day. Three days before the beginning of Mohani and again on the fourth and sixth day of the Mohani cycle, a Taleju Brahman—representing the king and the Brahmans—and a Josi and an Acaju from the temple go to the Dipankara vihara to inspect her. They check to see if she has the required physical characteristics. If not, another girl must be substituted. They do not, as a matter of fact, check her completely. She is clothed, and they examine only her face, teeth, and extremities. They ask the responsible Vajracarya

Buddhist priest to swear an oath that her entire state is proper for her to be Kumari, which he does on each of the three occasions.^[81]

By now the children of the Gana^[*] Kumari have finished their time at the Taleju temple, and have been carried back to the living Kumari's god-house in Casukhel. Now once again, the Brahman-king, the Josi, and the Acaju proceed from the Taleju temple to the Sukuldhoka area, to a position along the southern circumference of the city's main processional route as it enters the upper city and wait there. Now members of the Jyapu Kalu thar , thought to have been traditionally messengers for the Malla kings, go, accompanied by musicians, to the living Kumari god-house, where the girl is now staying. She is now elaborately dressed and decorated to represent the goddess, and her forehead has been marked with monhi . The messengers bring her back to the waiting king and priests. The king now takes her in his arms and carries her, accompanied by the other members of the procession, back along the processional route to the Taleju temple. When they arrive there she is met at the entrance to the temple's inner courtyard by another set of priests who welcome her and by means of a laskusa ceremony lead her to the door leading into the Kumari court. Now the king washes her feet, as the feet of the Gana^[*] Kumari gods had earlier been washed, and bows down to her. He then lifts her again and carries her into the Kumari court. In that court is the Na:la swa(n) area, the true image of the goddess Taleju, and the decapitated goat heads from the preceding day.^[82] The blood, however, has been cleaned from the floor, making the scene less horrible, and the heads have been neatly arranged.^[83] Now Kumari becomes the focus of worship, with the king as the chief worshiper. During the worship, which takes perhaps two hours, the girl's behavior is carefully watched. This is the time of the annual darsana , or manifestation of Taleju in the form of the living Kumari to the king. The staff, under the leadership of the Josi, will later interpret her actions as a sign of future events, as they had interpreted the actions of the Gana^[*] Kumari. The staff looks for two different things. First they look for some sign in the girl's behavior, something in her action that seems more knowing or mature than the ordinary behavior of a six-year-old girl that will confirm to them that the goddess is present. This is for their own satisfaction, for however the child acts, that action is taken as a manifestation of Taleju, and as a sign. More important (at least it was in the Malla times) is their search for omens. As with the Gana^[*] Kumari, the child's measured acceptance of food and offerings, neither rejection nor gluttony are good signs, as is the quiet, good-natured acceptance of

the worship, manifesting neither silliness, tears, nor a desire to go home as soon as possible. Proper or improper behaviors are interpreted as giving some very general indication of the sort of year that is in store for the king. In the days of the Malla kings, it is said, the Kumari's behavior actually affected the kings' policy. Now if, and only if, there is some particularly dramatic or portentous occurrence, the Saha king's priest in Kathmandu is informed of it. Although the Ekanta Kumari, like the members of the Gana^[*] Kumari, is a vehicle for a god, the deity does not possess her in the same way as it will the members of the Nine Durgas troupe, who become the deities in an uncanny transformation. She is a child through whose ordinary behavior the goddess manifests herself.

At the end of the worship the priests take prasada from the child goddess, and she is brought out of the Kumari courtyard into the main inner courtyard. Now the king calls for music, and musicians, who are in adjoining courtyards, begin to play. People, who have come in large numbers and now pack the inner courtyard, bow to her and take prasada from her if they can. In the main courtyard the priests transfer her to her Vajracarya priest, who conducts her back to her god-house along the main jatra route, where multitudes of people wait to see her and receive prasada from her (see fig. 32).

On the evening of this ninth day and on the following day there are a number of public events that signal the imminent return of the Nine Durgas to Bhaktapur. During the weeks before Mohani members of that family among the Pu(n) thar which has the hereditary right and responsibility to prepare the masks of the Nine Durgas troupe have been making the masks with the proper and traditional ritual and technical procedures (Teilhet 1978). The masks include among their ingredients a mixture of a specially gathered and prepared clay mixed with some of the ashes saved from the cremation of the previous year's masks. Also during this period the members of the Gatha thar who will perform and become the Nine Durgas are engaged in the secret activities that will ensure the successful and proper public effectiveness of their representation of the Nine Durgas.

On their return from their evening procession to the Tripurasundari pitha many people pass through the courtyard of a special house in the Yache(n) twa: , where the thirteen masks that will be used by the Gatha are arranged side by side on a platform. Many of them then wait along the route on which the Gathas will chase a bull water buffalo, in an echo of the running of the Nikhuthu to the Taleju temple on the previous day. This buffalo is called the "Kha(n) Me:." Me : means "water buffa-

lo," and Kha(n) is a term of uncertain meaning here, although the same term is used as one name of the Na:la swa(n) room, where it is locally interpreted to mean "sword." The Kha(n) Me: has been kept in a special room on the cheil , the ground floor, of the Nine Durgas' god-house. It has been made drunk, as had the Nikhuthu, and now staggering and lurching toward the bystanders, is chased by the Gathas—who are in their ordinary clothes and are not yet the Nine Durgas—from the god-house down to Dattatreya Square, where great crowds of people are waiting to watch it, and then on to the Brahmani pitha , which will be a focus of secret activities for the Gatha during the night, and one of the centers of the next, the tenth, day's activities. The Kha(n) Me:, like Nikhuthu, represents the great Asura, Mahisasura^[*] . This echo of the previous days' events represents, with the involvement of the low-status, marginally clean Gatha, a movement of the Devi myth out of the Royal and aristocratic Taleju temple, and into the demotic realm of the city.

Later in the night, when people are asleep, the Gatha go to "steal" the masks. Those who happen to be abroad in the city during the night avoid the areas on the route from the house where the masks were displayed to the Brahmani pitha where the next Gatha activities will take place, because they fear that to see these things will cause death. The Kha(n) Me: will be secretly sacrificed at the Brahmani pitha by the Gatha during the night. The sacrifice follows the procedures for the Nine Durgas' sacrifices, which we will describe below. The Gathas as the Nine Durgas are at the same time the sacrificers and the deities to whom the sacrifices are offered, and they will drink some of the blood of the Kha(n) Me:. The drinking of this blood, the "life blood," is appropriate to dangerous deities but would be fatal to humans. This thus signals that the Gatha have become the Nine Durgas. It is said that at the Brahmani pitha on this night the Gatha, wearing their costumes as gods, do their first dances as deities for the new cycle. They have not yet, however, attained their full power. This is a preliminary stage during which their slowly waxing powers derive from their sacrifice and from their worship of Brahmani. They will attain their full siddhi , or supernatural effectiveness, from Taleju in the course of the events of the final, the tenth day of Mohani.