170. performance
was in such demand for this skill that his activities as a medium eventually displaced his
astrology business.
- The same idea is operative in the Kumaricults of Nepal, in which specially cho-
sen young girls occupy a ritual position as a goddess until their first menstruation. See
Michael Allen, The Cult of Kumari: Virgin Worship in Nepal (Kathmandu: Tribhuvan
University, 1975). - Interview, New Delhi, February 14, 1983. Similar cases of conflict have been
recorded from the late nineteenth century, during the heyday of the arya Samaj reform
movement. See Kenneth W. Jones, Arya Dharm: Hindu Consciousness in Nineteenth-
Century Punjab (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 190. - Interview, New Delhi, January 12, 1983.