Photos

to Dear Alita, bip-bip & kclai, Thanks for your comments. Hope the following elaborates things a little :)

I was at the Golden Temple at Patan on a beautiful afternoon when i chanced upon this delightful Newar ceremony. There must be at least 20 little girls fully dressed (very much like Kumari). They were innocently enjoying the attention and admiration of their parents as well as onlookers, probably not fully understanding the significance of the ceremony they're themselves going through.

Some parents approached me to snap these moments for them and I very gladly obliged. Later they offered me bananas and other snacks and explained to me it's a symbolic "marriage-to-god" ceremony caled "Ihi" (pronounce:Aiee), at age 5. When i got home to s'pore i had mailed them the prints, I hope they like it!

A little googling reveals the following details:
"There appear to be many complicated reasons for this practice, but they all center around the position that a girl can only properly be married once in her lifetime. By having a full-rites marriage to a Hindu god, her subsequent marriages then are considered to be of only secondary importance. Therefore, if a Newar woman were ever left widowed, abandoned or divorced, Newars do not look upon her with the stigma that such an experience may bring to her otherwise."