She was the first wife of Mahendra of Nepal (1920–1972). Crown Princess Indra belonged to the aristocratic Rana family and was the daughter of late Honorary General Hari Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana and his wife, Megha Kumari Rajya Lakshmi.[3]
She married Crown Prince Mahendra on 8 May 1940 as a teenager at 14, and died on 4 September 1950 at the age of 24. She bore three sons and three daughters before her early death. She succumbed to a post-partum haemorrhage, a complication following the birth of her sixth child,[4]Dhirendra.[5] The death of the Crown Princess led to the building of the kingdom's first maternity hospital, the Prasuti Griha, and her head-and-shoulders statue stands in the entrance of the hospital that was built on the grounds of Charburja Durbar and was opened on 17 August 1959.[6]
Two years after Indra's death, her younger sister Ratna married Crown Prince Mahendra.[citation needed] There were no children by this marriage.[7]
^Jane Wilson-Howarth (2012). A Glimpse of Eternal Snows: a journey of love and loss in the Himalayas. Bradt Travel Guides, UK. p. 390. ISBN978-1-84162-435-8.
