"Temple authorities have sacrificed a buffalo, a sheep, a goat and a duck offered by the king to the goddess," a temple priest said.

Earlier, the king offered a basket of fruit draped in red fabric and marigold-and-jasmine garlands amid the chanting of hymns during an hour-long ceremony in the heavily guarded temple on a hilltop on the outskirts of Guwahati, the main city in Assam state.

His press secretary, Mohan Bahadur Panday, told Reuters the king would not violate the law of the land and would leave it "up to temple authorities to decide whether to hold the animal sacrifice".

"Being a Hindu king, he has visited this temple to seek blessings for the welfare of his country," Panday said.

The temple priest said the animals, which had been offered by the king's priests on Tuesday, were beheaded and their blood offered to the goddess one-and-a-half hours after the king left the stone temple.

"Once animals are offered to the goddess according to our temple rituals they have to be sacrificed, they cannot be let loose," said Naba Kanta Sharma, secretary of the 1,000-year-old temple.

King Gyanendra took over the throne of the world's only Hindu kingdom a year ago after his brother, King Birendra, and most of the royal family were gunned down by Crown Prince Dipendra in a drunken shooting spree in which he also killed himself.

The impoverished Himalayan nation of 23 million, also battling a bloody communist rebellion that has killed thousands, is still struggling to recover from the massacre.

The Nepali king is considered a reincarnation of Vishnu, the Hindu god of protection.