Where most Buddhist traditions place celibate monks at the center of religious authority, Newar Buddhism instead rests on a hereditary caste of married tantric priests, the vajracharya, who perform initiations, life cycle rites and temple worship for lay Buddhists much as a Brahmin priest would for Hindus, alongside the related shakya caste, which performs rituals chiefly within its own families. Newar monasteries function as residences for these caste communities and as ritual centers rather than as houses of celibate monastic renunciation, a structural difference scholars single out as the clearest marker of Newar Buddhism's distinct historical path.
The tradition's best known devotional figure crosses the Hindu-Buddhist line entirely: the Kumari is a prepubescent Newar girl, selected through an elaborate examination of auspicious physical marks and ritual courage, who is worshipped as the living embodiment of the goddess Taleju Bhawani, herself understood as a form of Durga, while her selection and daily care are overseen largely by Newar Buddhist Shakya families.
The reigning Royal Kumari of Kathmandu received formal veneration from Nepal's kings before the monarchy's abolition and continues to be honored by the state and by ordinary devotees of both religions, making her cult one of the clearest living demonstrations of how thoroughly Newar religious identity blends traditions elsewhere in South Asia treated as separate.