September 1, 2004 ☼ Foreign Affairs
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
The murders (of King Birendra and his entire family) are a strange twist of history, but one indicative of the entangled karma surrounding the Nepalese royal family. To grasp the situation, one must go back to Prithvi Narayan Shah, who in 1769 united Nepal into a one kingdom. According to tradition, the king was about to march into Kathmandu Valley when he encountered a sage. The king offered the sage some yogurt, which the sage tasted and gave back to the king as blessed. But unwilling to eat what the sage had already tasted, the king threw the yogurt on the ground, covering his feet in the action. The sage then chastised the king for his pride, and said if he had taken the yogurt he would have had every wish fulfilled. But instead, the yogurt covering the king’s ten toes meant his dynasty would fall after ten generations. Birendra was indeed the tenth generation after King Prithvi Narayan Shah, and Dipendra the eleventh. “This legend has a place in Nepalese history, said Milan Shakya, a renowned astrologer and a professor at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan University.”Whether these terrible events are merely coincidence or a playing out of the prophecy remains to be seen.” A major consideration in the continuation of the dynasty is not King Gyanendra, who is considered a competent leader and decent man, but his son and now crown prince, Paras, who has an unsavory reputation and is widely disliked in Nepal. [Hinduism Today]
Both the late King Birendra and the current King Gyanendra belonged to the tenth generation. With many in Nepal not exactly enthused by the prospect of Crown Prince Paras Shah ascending the throne, this prophecy may be fulfilled even if the Maoists do not succeed in overthrowing the monarchy.
Ironically, the doctrinally atheistic Maoists are being helped by (and may even be exploiting) the Nepalese peoples’ faith in this prophecy.
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