Nepal's former prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala, who helped broker peace with the former Maoist rebels to end a civil war, died on Saturday, officials said.
The Maoist leader Prachanda said his death was an "irreparable loss" to the fragile peace process in the nascent Himalayan republic. The civil war, which ended in 2006, killed more than 13,000 people.
Koirala, a six-time prime minister, died at the age of 86 at his daughter's home in Kathmandu, where thousands of supporters had gathered. One of his doctors told Reuters Koirala died of a chest infection.
He was the head of the centrist Nepali Congress party, the biggest constituent in the coalition government.
Koirala helped begin landmark peace talks with the Maoists in 2006, which brought the rebels into the political mainstream and paved the way for the abolition of the 239-year-old Hindu monarchy.
Koirala became the country's first elected prime minister in 1991 after pro-democracy protests.
Nepal has been in political turmoil since the Maoists quit the government last year in a conflict with the president over plans to fire the country's army chief.
Koirala is seen by many as a guardian of the peace process.
"His death is an irreparable loss to the peace process and the process of making a new constitution," Maoist chief Prachanda said in a statement.
Analysts said the peace process would not get derailed.
"I think the peace process will survive. Prachanda says it is a loss because he and Koirala were working to find a power sharing agreement at a high level political mechanism," said Kunda Dixit, editor of the Nepali Times weekly.
Senior Congress leader Sher Bahadur Deuba told reporters the funeral would be held on Sunday.
The Nepal government declared Sunday, which is a working day in the country, as a public holiday and said Koirala would be given a funeral with state honours.
"Shri Koirala was one of Nepal's tallest leaders and an elder statesman of South Asia," Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh said in a statement.
"Shri Koirala was a mass leader and a statesman, whose knowledge and wisdom guided the polity of Nepal in the right direction at critical junctures in the country's history."
Koirala had been released from hospital earlier this week after receiving treatment for anaemia, breathing problems and other ailments.
He spent nearly seven years in jail in the 1960s for protests against the king.
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