Royalty in the News

The mementos of the murdered King Birendra on Nepal are to be sold – though not through any fancy royal auction. It would be done through a sale similar to a flea market.

And these are not just simple artifacts. They include, along with a pair of glasses, a crown, a dagger and some clothes. Keep in mind these belongings were once owned by a man who’s death broke the hearts of the Nepalese people

So reflects what has become of royalty in Nepal. After most of the Shah dynasty was shot and murdered in June 2001, the fate of the Nepalese monarchy fell into the hands of the Himalayan country’s Maoists. They stripped Nepal’s last King Gyanendra of his powers, and then finally abolishing the monarchy earlier this year. The royal family, once seen as deities, were reduced to being ordinary people, and their palace was turned into a museum.

It remains to be seen what the selling of these itemswill draw the attention of either Maoist Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda or the slain king’s sole surviving brother, Gyanendra, and persuade an initiative by either to buy the mementos of the best loved king of Nepal and preserve them as national heritage.

The artifacts were previously owned by a man who was chosen to cleanse Nepal the sin of regicide after the 2001 killings. A Brahmin, Durga Prasad Sapkota, was gifted an elephant and money to symbolically leave the country on the back of the beast, signifying the purging of the national sin.

Sapkota died recently, and his wifetold Nepal’s state media Tuesday that she was in straitened circumstances and had decided to sell the royal items in her possession to the highest bidders.

The articles in her possession have been certified as authentic by a former palace official who used to head the palace treasury.

The news of the proposed sale comes at a time the new government headed by the Maoists is converting the royal palace into a national museum where priceless old royal artifacts, jewelery and documents would be preserved for the nation.