page_title: Rajendra Bikram Shah
section_title: Reign
hierarchical_section_title: Rajendra Bikram Shah / Reign
caption_attribution_description: English: A 19th century painting of King Rajendra Bikram Shah Deva of Nepal from the Freer Gallery of Art at Smithsonian Institution
context_page_description: Rajendra Bikram Shah was King of Nepal from 1816 to 1847. His reign saw the rise of the Ranas; in 1846, Jung Bahadur Rana came to power and the next year, Rajendra was forced to abdicate in favor of his son, Surendra.
context_section_description: Rajendra came of age in 1832, and in 1837 announced his intention to rule independently of the Prime Minister.  He stripped Bhimsen Thapa and Thapa's nephew, Mathabar Singh, of their military authority.  Shortly afterward the youngest son of Rajendra's elder queen died, and Bhimsen Thapa was arrested on a trumped-up charge of poisoning the prince. All the property of the Thapas was confiscated. Bhimsen Thapa was acquitted after an eight-month trial, but the Thapas were in disarray. When Rana Jang Pande became prime minister, he reimprisoned Bhimsen Thapa, who committed suicide in prison in 1839.
  King Rajendra is generally described as a weak, incapable and indecisive ruler. He decided to stay out of all the ruling activities and from 1839 to 1841, his senior wife Queen Samrajya was the de facto regent of Nepal. After the senior queen died in 1841, the junior queen, Queen Rajya Lakshmi, became the de facto regent.
  In January 1843, Rajendra declared that he would rule the country only with advice and agreement of his junior queen, Rajyalakshmi, and commanded his subjects to obey her even over his own son, Surendra Bikram Shah.  Continued infighting among noble factions led eventually to the Kot Massacre in 1846.
caption: राजा राजेन्द्र विक्रम शाह
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