Maharani is a wonderful novel about the hidden and very old history of Nepal. This book is written by Chandraprakash Baniya. It is the winner book of Madan Prize 2020. This book is about the story of Maharani (queen) relating to the social, financial, and political situation of Baise Chaubise Rajya( kingdom) of Nepal. Actually, the writer represents a powerful character, a princess whose name is Bishwaprava, who had given her entire life or her wants and dreams as the contribution to save the kingdom of Parbat.
There are many characters in this novel. However, I am going to write about the just core story of this book. A long long time ago, there was a kingdom named Parbat in Nepal. Ghanashyam Malla was the king of Parbat who had two wives and two sons who could claim the throne of Parbat. As the system of nepotism, the big son or the first son of the king used to be the king automatically at that time. But, the condition of Parbat was a little bit complicated because there were two sons i.e. Malebam and Bhadribam. Malebam was born first but Bhadribam was the first child of the king according to pregnancy. However, Bhadribam was staying with his maternal family in Jumla.
As the prince Malebam grows up youth, two princesses i.e. Bishwaprava and Mahalbasanta come into the palace for him as future wives or queens. Both princesses were beautiful, smart, intelligent, well-cultured, and well-mannered. However, princess Bishwaprava was the most beautiful and smart. So, all the royal members including prince Malebam fell in love with her.
All activities or things were going well. At that time, Bhadribam came to Parbat and claims for the throne. Then, there arose many problems in the political state of Parbat even the possibility of division of the kingdom. At last, Bhadribam asks to give princess Bishwaprava who was the heart of the royal family. Otherwise, he was constantly at his discussion that he wants half kingdom which could be the end of Parbat. On the next side, princess Bishwaprava wanted to become the queen of Parbat and she was in love with prince Malebam. However, the princess sacrifices her all dreams, wants, luxuries, and her love to save the Parbat kingdom.
King Malebam( who became the king after king Ghanashyam) married princess Mahalbasanta and Bhadribam married princess Bishwaprava. After some time, princess Bishwaprava found out that her husband is making a conspiracy to take over the throne of Parbat with other people of other kingdoms. So, she gave notice of that plan to king Malebam. Then, King Malebam killed all the people who were included in that conspiracy including his own brother Bhadribam, Biswaprava’s husband. If the princess hadn’t told king Malebam about that conspiracy, then the Parbat kingdom would have destroyed. So, once again she made the Prabat kingdom safe.
In this way, princess Biswaprava had given the sacrifice of all things to Parbat kingdom that she had and she could do. So, Parbat kingdom gave the status of ‘Maharani’ or ‘Rajamata’ (who is the powerful than king) to princess Bishwaprava. Nowadays, we worship maharani as the goddess in Nepal.
So, this is a short summary of the book ‘Maharani’. If you are really a book lover and history lover, then don’t forget to read this book. 🙂
