1000 Rupees - Birendra Bir Bikram Kumari

Nepal's 2000 silver issue commemorates Kumari, the living goddess tradition in which a prepubescent girl — selected through an elaborate ritual examination — is venerated as a manifestation of the divine feminine until she reaches puberty. The practice is centered in the Kathmandu Valley and carries formal state recognition, an unusual arrangement that survived the transition away from Nepal's official Hindu kingdom status, which did not come until 2008.

Birendra Bir Bikram, the reigning monarch when this coin was struck, was killed the following year in the royal massacre of June 2001.