Newly appointed Living Goddess Kumari of Kathmandu Trishna Shakya is just three (Picture: Reuters/Navesh Chitrakar

A three-year-old girl has become a new living goddess, revered by both Hindus and Buddhists in the Himalayan nation.

Trishna Shakya was carried in a religious ceremony to a temple palace in the heart of the capital, Kathmandu, where she is to live until just before puberty.

She was among four final contestants from the Shakya clan for the position of living goddess, called Kumari.

Soon after Trishna’s arrival at the temple palace, her predecessor, 12-year-old Matina Shakya, left from a rear entrance on a palanquin carried by her family and supporters.


Trishna Shakya (C), 3, is carried by her father Bijaya Ratna Shakya as she heads to Kumari House where she will live for the next few years as the new Kumari (Picture: Getty)

The ceremony took place on the eighth day of the two-week-long Dasain festival, the main festival.



The ‘Kanya’ or Kumari Puja is a ritual of worshipping a girl aged between six and twelve years, symbolising the Kanya Kumari (virgin) form of the Goddess Durga Devi.

Hindu devotees perform the Kanya Puja in front of an idol of the Goddess Durga and believe that a Kanya is a living impersonation of the goddess.