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A small, tight-knit Newar community, BODE is built on a bluff overlooking the Manohara River, 1km north of Thimi. The village's main shrine, the Mahalakshmi Mandir , stands at the northwest corner of the village, a modest and not particularly well-maintained two-tiered pagoda. The goddess of wealth, Maha ("Great") Lakshmi is feted during a three-day festival beginning on New Year's Day (here called Baisaakh Sankranti, meaning the first day of Baisaakh - April 13 or 14). The highlight of the proceedings comes on the second day, when a volunteer has his tongue bored with a thin steel spike and, thus impaled and bearing a disc-shaped object with flaming torches mounted on it, accompanies the goddess as she's paraded around the village. Volunteers believe that they won't bleed if they've followed a prescribed three-day fast and have sufficient faith, and that by performing this act they'll go directly to heaven when they die.
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