International Journal of Hindu Studies 10, 1 (April 2006): 00–00 © 2006 by Springer Dev⁄’s Dance: The Interweaving of Politics, Mysticism, and Culture in Kathmandu Valley Jeffrey S. Lidke On June 1, 2001, shots rang out from Nepal’s Royal Palace. Later that night Nepal’s home minister reported to the world a crime of Shakespearean dimensions: the Crown Prince Dipendra, in a state of drugged and drunken rage, had gunned down his father, mother, sister, younger brother, and several other family members before turning the trigger on himself and thereby extinguishing an entire dynastic bloodline. Immediately, a majority of Nepalese asserted that this official-line was a cover-up. 1 They pointed their collective finger at new King Gyanendra and his son Paras claiming that they had orchestrated a coup with the backing of the military and perhaps extra-national forces. Several powerful forces would have likely had interest in the death of former King Birendra Shah Deva. The Maoists, funded by terrorist forces outside Nepal, saw him as the symbol of the old regime, a regime predicated on unjust and unquestioned hierarchies justified by superstitions and religious ideologies. Hindu factions in India were deeply troubled by his open policy towards their potential enemies, the Chinese, and were further angered by his commitment to restricting Indian immigrants. The United Marxist Leninists, funded by Chinese Maoist groups, resented King Birendra’s powerful hold on the Nepalese majority who still regarded him as a god-king. Some speculate that King Gyanendra’s early taste of the throne