Daily Times

KATHMANDU: Eight years after losing his royal title when the centuries-old Buddhist monarchy was abolished, the last king of the isolated Himalayan region of Upper Mustang died in Kathmandu on Friday.

86-year-old Jigme Dorje Palbar Bista reigned over the arid kingdom, high on the Tibetan plateau, for more than half a century before stepping down in 2008 when Nepal abolished its own monarchy. “After being admitted in the hospital three days ago, he passed away at 1 am this morning. He had not been well since about a year, but was having increased difficulty because of the cold,” the former king’s nephew Tsewang Bista told AFP.

“Rituals will be performed till Sunday and the final burial would take place on Monday in Kathmandu,” he said. Nepal annexed the former kingdom of Lo in the 18th century, but allowed the king to retain his title. Bista succeeded his father, Angun Tenzing Tandul, in 1964, continuing a family line that could trace its legacy back to Ame Pal, the warrior who founded the kingdom in 1380.

He supported a CIA-funded rebellion to overthrow Chinese forces from Tibet after a failed uprising in 1959, allowing Upper Mustang to be used as a base. Bista had lived most of his life in the medieval walled capital of Lo Manthang, but moved to Kathmandu over a year ago after he became ill – suffering from heart and kidney problems.

The region was closed to visitors until 1992 and numbers are still strictly regulated.