ARTDAILY
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| In this photograph taken on May 21, 2015, Dhana Kumari Bajracharya, the longest reigning Kumari of Nepal, sits in her quarters in Kathmandu. AFP PHOTO / Ishara S. KODIKARA. |
NEPAL---When a massive earthquake struck Nepal in April, Nepal's longest-serving "living goddess" was forced to do the unthinkable -- walk the streets for the first time in her life, she told AFP in a rare interview. Still following the cloistered lifestyle she entered at the age of two,
Dhana Kumari Bajracharya also opened up about her unusually long 30-year reign, suggesting the pain of her unceremonious dethroning in the 1980s was still raw. The Himalayan nation's living goddesses, known as Kumaris, live in seclusion and rarely speak in public, bound by customs that combine elements of Hinduism and Buddhism. [
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