Ratna Rajya Lakshmi Devi Shah is a member of the Nepalese royal family who was queen consort of Nepal from 1955 to 1972 and queen dowager from 1972 to 2008 when the royal family were stripped of all titles and privileges. She is the second wife of King Mahendra (1920–1972). Ratna belongs to the aristocratic Rana family and is the daughter of Field Marshal Hari Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana and his wife, Megha Kumari Rajya Lakshmi.

Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, was the ninth King of Nepal from 13 March 1955 until his death in 1972, which was due to a heart attack, as told in an interview by his personal physician Dr. Mrigendra Raj Pandey. Following the 1960 coup d'état, he established the partyless Panchayat system, which governed the country for 28 years until the introduction of multi-party democracy in 1990. During his reign, Nepal experienced a period of industrial, political and economic change which opened it to the rest of the world for the first time, after the 104-year-long reign of the Rana rulers, who kept the country under an isolationist policy, came to an end in 1951.