A girl who was born with eight arms and legs is undergoing surgery in her native India to have some of them removed. (Click here for more pictures.)

Considered by some in her village to be a reincarnation of the Hindu goddess -- after whom the 2-year-old Lakshmi is named -- the girl has been treated with reverence as well as spectacle. A circus even offered to buy her from her family.

The extra limbs -- and also extra organs -- are the result of a parsitic twin. A conjoined twin stopped developing in the mother's womb and was absorbed by the surviving fetus. This has left Lakshmi with a complicated little body. Doctors have already separated her two fused spines. 

Chances are good that she'll live past adolescence, her doctors say, if she can overcome the 20 to 25 percent odds that she won't survive the surgery.

Photos: Associated Press