treasures of nepal

of Taleju Bhavani, the patron deity of theroyals, and the king conversing and playing dicewith her are linked to certain kings who ruledKathmandu, like Trailokya Malla (16th century)and the last Malla ruler of Kathmandu, JayaPrakash Malla (18th century). According to thelegend, it so happened that one night whileplaying dice with Goddess Taleju, or Kumari, theking was aroused by her celestial beauty and wasovercome with lust. The Kumari, a goddess as shewas, at once visualised the amorous thoughts inthe king’s mind. Showing her utter displeasure,she declared that she would henceforth nevercome to him and disappeared. The king wasfilled with profound remorse and begged forforgiveness. The Goddess later relented and saidthat she would enter the body of a virgin girl, aKumari, which the king was to worship.Another version of the legend has it that theking and Kumari used to play dice every night oncondition that no mortal would see them doingso. Accordingly, the king had strictly instructedthe queen and his daughter not to enter orpeek into the certain room while he was inside.But curiosity got the better of the women, andthey peeped inside. The angry Goddess thendisappeared. The king repented and prayed forthe Goddess’ forgiveness. Goddess Kumari thencame in his dream and told the king that shewould henceforth not come in person. Insteadthe king was to worship a Shakya virgin girl whowould possess her divine power. Since then, aShakya virgin girl is worshipped as the Kumari,and once a year during the month of September,the Living Goddess is taken around the oldquarters of Kathmandu in her chariot during theIndra Jatra festival.Bisket JatraBisket Jatra is a gala festival held annually inBhaktapur on Nepalese New Year’s Day (BikramSambat). There is a popular folklore about theorigin of this festival. It relates to the timeof the reign of Lichchhavi King Shiva Deva. ATantrik by the name of Shekhar Acharya wassaid to possess the extraordinary power oftransforming himself into animals and reptiles.Once, his over-curious wife, Nararupa, wantedto see him change into a serpent. After muchpestering by the wife, he finally gave in to herdemand. But before doing so, he warned her notto be scared by what she was likely to see andto throw some grains of rice on him that wouldreturn him to his human form. He then changedhimself into a huge python. But when Nararupasaw the gigantic serpent, she was terrified. Shelost her nerve, and instead of throwing the riceat her husband-in-serpent form, she put the ricein her own mouth, which turned her also into apython.It so happened that in the whole kingdom, noneother than the king knew the mantra (chantingof sacred words) that could resuscitate themfrom the serpent to human form. Therefore,expecting to draw the attention of the king tohelp them return to human form, the husbandand wife pythons would stand and gaze towardsthe palace every day in the hope that the kingwould notice and resuscitate them to humanform. Time went by, but to no avail. Finally, thefrustrated python couple committed suicide at aplace called Chuping Ghat (a river bank).This tragic end of Shekhar Acharya and his wifebrought famine to the country. Not knowing27