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KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepal's king and
queen and other members of the royal family
shot dead in a palace massacre were
cremated on Saturday as tens of thousands of
emotional mourners thronged the narrow
streets.

Nepal state radio said Crown Prince Dipendra
had been declared the new king but he was in
a coma in critical condition.

Home (Interior) Minister Ram Chandra Poudel had said the prince killed King
Birendra, Queen Aishwarya and six other royals in a family feud late on
Friday and then turned the gun on himself.

But later he said authorities did not know how they died. ''Since the incident
took place inside the Royal Palace we don't know exactly how the incident
occurred,'' he told Reuters.

The bodies were cremated on the banks of the holy Bagmati river in keeping
with a Hindu tradition of cremating the dead quickly, especially in the hot
summer weather.

The streets teemed with thousands of people, some sobbing, some silent in
shock, some shouting, ``May the king live forever.''

They followed the white-clad pallbearers who carried the flower-strewn
funeral biers the 10 km (six mile) journey from the hospital where bodies had
been kept to the famed Hindu temple of Lord Pashupatinath.

The procession was led by a military band and hundreds of soldiers and
cavalry men on horseback.

CARRIED BY 12 PALLBEARERS

The body of the king, revered by many Nepalis as an incarnation of the
Hindu god Vishnu, was carried by 12 pallbearers around the pyre three times
before it was lit according to Hindu rites. The band played the Last Post and
56 guns boomed a final salute.

Soon afterward, the pyres of the queen, their son and daughter and the other
victims of the massacre were lit as the pungent smell of burning incense
sticks filled the air.

Nepal radio said the privy council had declared Dipendra king but because
he was in a coma had also appointed the late king's brother, Prince
Gyanendra, as regent. Gyanendra, a keen conservationist, was out of town at
the time of the killings.

The massacre was the latest misfortune to hit the impoverished Himalayan
country of some 22 million people that has been racked by political instability
and a spreading Maoist rebellion.

As authorities hastily arranged the funeral, bewildered, anxious Nepalis
swarmed into the streets to pay their last respects to the world's only Hindu
king.

King Birendra, known as the gentle monarch, enjoyed great popularity among
the people, particularly after he ceded absolute power in favor of a
British-style constitutional monarchy in 1990.

INFLUENTIAL IN POLITICS

Though he did not directly interfere in politics,
he was influential, and many prime ministers
counted on his support.

Civil servants were ordered to shave their
heads in a traditional Hindu mark of respect
while Nepal began a 13-day period of
mourning.

Earlier state radio interrupted an endless
stream of religious music to announce the royal deaths. But it gave no
explanation of the circumstances.

Those who knew Dipendra said they did not believe speculation that he had
killed his own parents.

``The crown prince was bright, sensible and friendly,'' said Mana Ranjan
Josse, a journalist who has written extensively about the royal family. ``I find it
incredible.''

``People want to know what happened. Everybody is shocked but nobody's
telling us the true story,'' said Manohar Singh, who stood at his motorcycle
on the road to the Royal Palace.

One official said, however, there was no evidence of any group outside the palace being involved in the
deaths.

Analysts said the king's violent death, in such unexplained circumstances, was likely to sow deep confusion
in the country.

RESPECTED MONARCH

``King Birendra commanded great respect,'' said Kalim Bahadur, professor of South Asian studies at
Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. ``He played a key role in promoting democracy and enabling it to
take roots in the kingdom,'' he added.

Nepal, a landlocked country of some 22 million people, has been racked by a Maoist insurgency in recent
years. It is one of the world's 10 poorest countries.

Messages of sympathy poured in from around the world.

President Bush (news - web sites) said he was ``deeply saddened and shocked'' by the deaths.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) said the deaths of the royals were a ``dreadful tragedy,''
while Britain's Prince Charles, who knew the family well, was said to be shocked and saddened.

Both the new king and his father were educated at Britain's famed Eton College where Dipendra was
remembered as a bright and popular student.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) said he was profoundly shocked, while neighboring
India announced three days of official state mourning.

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Resident Board Socialist

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quote:

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That's sad. But I'm relieved to know there's at least one family that's more fucked up than mine.

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CROWN Prince Dipendra of Nepal massacred his family after bingeing on
cocaine and whisky following an ultimatum from his father to choose between
the throne and the woman he loved.

King Birendra, the first to be shot, confronted the prince with a choice
between marriage to his girlfriend, which would have excluded him from the
succession, and an arranged match with a courtier's daughter he was also
seeing.

The Eton-educated prince ran amok with two automatic rifles after days of
wrestling with his dilemma, claim members of the extended royal family.

A source close to the family said cocaine and a high level of alcohol had been
found in his bloodstream when he was treated in hospital after murdering the
king, queen and seven other family members.

Dipendra, who died last Monday, had set his heart on marrying Devyani Rana,
29, the daughter of a leading politician. But Queen Aiswarya objected on the
grounds that Devyani's great-grandmother had been a court mistress. She
nominated 27-year-old Supriya Shah, daughter of an aide-de-camp to
Nepal's Queen Mother, instead.

"Devyani was really the one he wanted," a close friend said.

The prince was told that if he married Supriya he could maintain Devyani as a
mistress, and was said by friends to be distraught after Devyani, whom they
described as a modern, sophisticated woman, refused to consider such an
arrangement.

A doctor said the cocaine could explain how the prince had managed to revive
himself after being taken to his room in a drunken stupor at the end of a family
dinner nine days ago. He dressed in military fatigues and returned downstairs
with his weapons to murder his family.

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