KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Trishna Shakya, 8, looks imposing in her finery as she is carried high in the arms of a helper from the temple palace. As she rides a chariot bedecked in garlands of brilliant orange marigolds, a crowd of devotees lifts their phones to capture the moment while receiving her blessings.

Shakya has been serving as Kumari — Nepal’s living goddess — since the age of 3, living in the Kumari’s temple palace for the past five years.

With thick vermillion paste on her forehead surrounding a golden representation of her “third eye,” Kumari was driven around the center of the capital in a wooden chariot pulled by devotees through tens of thousands gathered for the start of Nepal’s Indra Jatra festival Saturday.

The word “kumari” means virgin in the Nepali language, and its

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