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)

Lido cabaret dancers perform during a demonstration outside the cabaret as dancers, other employees and union activists are gathering to try to save their jobs and the history of the cabaret, known for its dinner theater and its “Bluebell Girls” revue, Saturday, May 28, 2022 in Paris. Amid financial troubles and changing times, the venue's new corporate owner is ditching most of the Lido's staff and its high-kicking, high-glamour dance shows – which date back decades and inspired copycats from Las Vegas to Beirut – in favor of more modest musical revues. (Photo by Thomas Padilla/AP Photo)

Bangladeshi railway police try to clear line, as thousands of Bangladeshi Muslims gather to board trains to return home after attending three-day Islamic Congregation on the banks of the River Turag in Tongi, 20 kilometers (13 miles) north of the capital Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, January 26, 2014. (Photo by A. M. Ahad/AP Photo)

A devotee dressed as Hindu Lord Shiva waits to participate in a parade during “Kumbh Mela” or the Pitcher Festival in Trimbakeshwar, India, August 18, 2015. The Kumbh Mela takes place four times every 12 years at four different river bank locations in India. (Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters)

A man (2nd L) takes pictures as visitors run away from a wave caused by a tidal bore which surged past a barrier on the banks of Qiantang River, in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province August 14, 2014. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

Widows, who have been abandoned by their families, light sparklers after offering prayers on the banks of the river Yamuna as part of Diwali celebrations organised by non-governmental organisation Sulabh International in Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh October 21, 2014. (Photo by Ahmad Masood/Reuters)

Men look on from the banks of Rio Doce (Doce River), which was flooded with mud after a dam owned by Vale SA and BHP Billiton Ltd burst, as the river joins the sea on the coast of Espirito Santo in Regencia Village, Brazil, November 22, 2015. (Photo by Ricardo Moraes/Reuters)

An ice covered entrance door to the international gene bank Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV) near Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen, Norway, October 20, 2015. Two consignments of crop seeds will be deposited next year in a “doomsday vault” built in an Arctic mountainside to safeguard global supplies. The vault, which opened on the Svalbard archipelago in 2008, is designed to protect crop seeds, such as beans, rice and wheat against the worst cataclysms of nuclear war or disease. (Photo by Anna Filipova/Reuters)