KATMANDU, NEPAL, February 9, 2010: Almost two years after he was stripped of his crown and became a commoner, Nepal’s deposed king Gyanendra hit the headlines Tuesday with reports that he had attended, for the first time in the history of Nepal’s Shah dynasty, a religious fair in a town till now considered out of bounds for his family.
Escorted by bodyguards and aides, the 62-year-old ousted king drove himself to Panauti on Monday, a town 22 miles southeast of Kathmandu, to attend the Makar Mela, a Hindu fair held every 12 years. In the past, legend had it that Panauti was a forbidden area for the Shah kings of Nepal since it was the domain of Hindu god Narayan and the kings of Nepal were considered incarnations of the same god.
The former king, breaking the taboo, said he was visiting the fair as a common citizen attending a religious event and not as a king.
Nepal’s history is often closely woven with legends and curses. North of Kathmandu lies a colossal statue of Vishnu, another incarnation of Narayan, lying in a bed of serpents on a pool. The Budanilkantha temple is the only one in Nepal that was forbidden to the royal family of Nepal after a legend arose that the king would die if he ever gazed on the 15 feet high statue.
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