| Budget Amount *help |
¥5,600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥5,600,000)
Fiscal Year 2000: ¥2,800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,800,000)
Fiscal Year 1999: ¥2,800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,800,000)
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| Research Abstract |
In this two years, our effort has been made to describe various features of the Kumari cult at Bungamati village in Kathmandu valley, the prestigious position of the girl (Kumari), her antecedents, and her life after she ceases to be Kumari, as well as the viability of the cult of the living goddess in the days ahead. In some ways the simplest anomaly concerning the girls who are worshipped as living goddess is that though Kumari is a classic Hindu deity, the daughter of the great Siva and half-brother to Ganesh, the girls themselves are all members of orthdox Buddhist Newar castes.
At first, we made a field research of Rata-Matsyendranath festival in Patan in order to make clear the relationship of Kumari worship and the mythology of special God (dess), Matsyendranath. From various indirect sources it seems possible that it may have begun in the form of small local and sporadic cults, possibly similar to those still found in the north-east Punjab, shortly after the introdiuction of Yajrayana Buddhism during the eleventh century. So it's much more inportant to know about Matsyendranath to understand Kumari worship in Nepal. Matsyendranath is specially cailled Karunamaya at Bungamati village, and also called Avalokitesvara in India.
We also made a short investigation in southern part of India from April 25 to May 1O. 1999, because it has been reperted that a cult of the virgin damsel or Kanya Kumari was flourishing in the southern part of India known as Comori or Kanya Kumari. Furthermore, we made two different field research in Bali, Indonesia from August, 2000 to March, 2001, in order to make a comparative table about virgin worship in Hindu societies. Now we have, to complete our researches as soon as possible.
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