Blood Against the Snows

Book excerpt: This work provides a portrait of Nepal's doom-laden royal dynasty from its staggering expansion in the 18th century to the massacre in June 2001 - a sequence of events worthy of a Greek tragedy. Nepal, a fabulous country of sublime natural beauty, has a history inextricably mixed with kingship. There have been kings in its mountain valleys for millennia. Buddha Siddharta was born a Nepalese prince and the current dynasty traces its ancestry to the Rajput princes from Rajasthan. Nepal is the last Hindu kingdom in the world, in which the same traditions of kingship are practised now as in Vedic times. Kings are gods, and history, kingship and myth are culturally woven together. The current Shah dynasty created modern Nepal and was the complete focus of national identity.