page_title: Rana Bahadur Shah
section_title: Reign
hierarchical_section_title: Rana Bahadur Shah / Reign
caption_attribution_description: English: Nepal, circa 1815 Drawings; watercolors Opaque watercolor and gold on paper Indian Art Special Purpose Fund (M.76.129) South and Southeast Asian Art File:King Girvan Yuddhavikram Shah (1797-1816) LACMA M.76.129.jpg File:King Girvan Yuddhavikram Shah (1797-1816) (restoration).jpg
context_page_description: Rana Bahadur Shah, King of Nepal was the King of Nepal from 1777 to 1799. In 1777, he succeeded to the throne after the death of his father, King Pratap Singh Shah. He ruled under the regencies of his mother, Queen Rajendra Rajya Lakshmi Devi, and then of his uncle, Bahadur Shah. During this time, the kingdom expanded by conquest to include the Garhwal and Kumaon regions, now part of India. He sent his uncle Bahadur Shah to jail, who later died in jail.
context_section_description: The premature death of Pratap Singh Shah (reigned 1775–77), the eldest son of Prithvi Narayan Shah, left a huge power vacuum that remained unfilled for decades, seriously debilitating the emerging Nepalese state. Pratap Singh Shah's successor was his son, Rana Bahadur Shah (reigned 1777–99), aged two and one-half years at his accession. The acting regent until 1785 was Queen Rajendralakshmi, followed by Bahadur Shah (reigned 1785–94), the second son of Prithvi Narayan Shah. Court life was consumed by rivalry centered on alignments with these two regents rather than on issues of national administration, and it set a bad precedent for future competition among contending regents. The exigencies of Sino-Nepalese War in 1788–92 had forced Bahadur Shah to temporarily take a pro-British stance, which had led to a commercial treaty with the British in 1792.
  Meanwhile, Rana Bahadur's youth had been spent in pampered luxury. In 1794 King Rana Bahadur Shah came of age, and his first act was to re-constitute the government such that his uncle, Bahadur Shah, had no official part to play. In mid 1795, he became infatuated with a Maithili Brahman widow, Kantavati Jha, and married her on the oath of making their illegitimate half-caste son (as per the Hindu law of that time) the heir apparent, by excluding the legitimate heir from his previous marriage. By 1797, his relationship with his uncle, who was living a retired life, and who wanted to seek refuge in China on the pretext of meeting the new emperor, had deteriorated to the extent that he ordered his imprisonment (on 19 February 1797) and his subsequent murder (on 23 June 1797). Such acts earned Rana Bahadur notoriety both among courtiers and common people, especially among Brahmins. Being ranodatta was the eldest son but not made king of Nepal
  That same year in 1797, Girvan Yuddha Bikram Shah was born and was immediately declared the crown prince. However, within a year of Girvan's birth, Kantavati contracted tuberculosis; and it was advised by physicians that she perform ascetic penances to cure herself. To make sure that Girvan succeeded to the throne while Kantavati was still alive, Rana Bahadur, aged just 23, abdicated in favor of their son on 23 March 1799, placing his first wife, Raj Rajeshwari, as the regent. He joined his ailing wife, Kantavati, with his second wife, Subarnaprabha, in ascetic life and started to live in Deopatan, donning saffron robes and titling himself Swami Nirgunanda. This move was also supported by all the courtiers who were discontented of his wanton and capricious behavior. It was around this time that both Bhimsen Thapa and his father Amar Singh Thapa (sanu) were promoted from subedar to the rank of sardar, and Bhimsen began to serve as the ex-King's chief bodyguard. However, Rana Bahadur's renunciation lasted only a few months. After the inevitable death of Kantavati, Rana Bahadur suffered a mental breakdown during which he lashed out by desecrating temples and cruelly punishing the attendant physicians and astrologers. He then renounced his ascetic life and attempted to re-assert his royal authority. This led to a direct conflict with almost all the courtiers who had pledged a holy oath of allegiance to the legitimate King Girvan; this conflict eventually led to the establishment of a dual government and to an imminent civil war, with Damodar Pande leading the military force against the dissenting ex-King and his group. Since most of the military officers had sided with the courtiers, Rana Bahadur realized that his authority could not be re-established; and he was forced to flee to the British-controlled city of Varanasi in May, 1800.
caption: Girvan Yuddha Bikram Shah was crowned king after Shah left for Varanasi.
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