Crown Prince Birendra of Nepal Will Study at Harvard Next Year

His Royal Highness Birendra Bir Bickram Shah Dev, the 21-year-old Crown Prince of Nepal, will study at Harvard next year as a special student.

According to a spokesman at the Nepalese embassy, the Prince will share a private suite in Quincy House with a Nepalese professor who is accompanying him.

The Prince, who will spend a year working on a liberal arts program, is a good painter and likes "jazzy music," the spokesman said. His Highness's American social life is now uncertain, the spokesman said, for the Prince has not shown any desire to get married. The spokesman declined to say whether the Prince would be allowed to marry an American girl.

This will be the Prince's second stint away from home -- he earlier spent five years at Eton in England. That was the first time in the history of Nepal that a member of the royal family had been given permission to study outside the country.

After his stay at Harvard, the Prince will return home for military training to prepare himself to rule his country.

His position as ruler will likely involve more than nominal responsibilities. Following a palace revolt in 1950, the present king (the Prince's father) assumed complete authority for ruling the country.

Lying in the shadow of the Himalayas, Nepal has a population of more than nine million. Nepal's international position is complicated by the country's proximity to Communist China on the north and India on the south. Both China and India have made strenuous efforts to influence affairs in Nepal.

When the Prince assumes the throne, he will be known to his people -- as his father is now known -- as The Living Incarnation of God.