The festival marks the end of the monsoon season and beginning of autumn. More than hundred girls under the age of nine gathered for the tradition of worshiping young pre-pubescent girls as manifestations of the divine female energy. The ritual holds a strong religious significance in Newar community. It is a community affair held primarily to save small girls from diseases and bad luck in the years to come. Photo: A young Nepalese girl dressed as a Kumari or living Goddess, smiles for camera as she waits for Kumari puja at Hanuman Dhoka, Basantapur Durbar Square in Katmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, September 17, 2013. (Photo by Niranjan Shrestha/AP Photo)

Actress Janina Gavankar attends OK! Magazine Pre-Oscar Party – Arrivals at Greystone Manor Supperclub on February 23, 2012 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images)

Dancers from the “Legend Lin Dance Theatre” perform the artistic director and choreographer Li-chen Lin's classic works “Hymne aux Fleurs qui Passent, Anthem to the Fading Flowers” during a rehearsal at the National Theater Concert Hall in Taipei, Taiwan, Tuesday, August 18, 2015. “Hymne aux Fleurs Qui Passent” pays tribute to the cycle of the year and the complementary principles of Yin and Yang whose eternal struggle provides the driving force behind the changing of the seasons. (Photo by Chiang Ying-ying/AP Photo)

Costumed guests arrive for the “Life Ball” charity event at the Rathaus city hall in Vienna, Austria, 10 June 2017. The 24th Life Ball is a charity fundraiser for HIV and Aids projects. (Photo by Christian Bruna/EPA/EFE)

Female members of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) honour guard stand behind a string to ensure that they are in a straight line before a welcoming ceremony for Russian President Vladimir Putin outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, June 25, 2016. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

Chimpanzees are fascinated as bubbles are fired from a bubble gun at the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Sierra Leone in the second decade of June 2024. The keepers used non-toxic soap liquid to create the bubble barrage. (Photo by Renato Granieri/Media Drum Images)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, his wife Ri Sol Ju and Song Tao, head of the International Department of Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, applaud with ballet dancers in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang April 17, 2018. (Photo by Reuters/KCNA)

Tautumeitas from Latvia performs the song “Bur Man Laimi” during the dress rehearsal for the second semi-final of the 69th Eurovision Song Contest, in Basel, Switzerland, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (Photo by Martin Meissner/AP Photo)