Temples and Treasures

Call it the mother of all treasure hunts. The stock-taking by a panel of experts at the Sree Padmanabha Swamy temple, Trivandrum, Kerala, has catapulted the shrine to the country's richest, with reports claiming that the value of recoveries may have touched close to Rs 1.5 lakh crore, With one more "secret" vault yet to be opened, the figure in all likelihood will go up further. But sources said the figures could only be speculation as it wasn't possible to determine the antique value of the precious gems and jewellery.

There were close to 1,000 kg of gold coins, some of these from the East India Company era and Napolean's period, about one tonne of gold in the form of rice trinkets, sack full of diamonds said to be from Burma and Sri Lanka, a rope made of gold and thousands of pieces of rare 'sarappoli' necklaces.

The stock-taking continued next day as only 30% of the assets could be counted on Thursday 30th july 2011. Again there were surprises in the form of a three-and-a-half feet tall idol of Lord Vishnu studded with diamonds, emeralds and rubies, an 18-feet-long ornament used to adorn the deity and weighing 35 kg and 1 feet tall human figurines weighing 1 kg each. There were coins marked 1772 indicating they were from the era of former Travancore ruler Karthika Thirunal Rama Varma better known as `Dharma Raja' for his strict adherence to the rules of 'dharma'.

There are six vaults marked A to F in the shrine. The A and B cellars have never been opened after 1872. The panel had set out on the job on June 27 and opened three vaults marked C, D and F till Wednesday. The B and E vaults remain to be opened. (Thanks TOI web info)

I am not at all surprised by this news, throughout Tamilnadu in Vaisnavite temples even in small villages this kind of assets donated by various Kings in to the name of God in the various forms including Gold, diamond ornaments and various form of Gems, farming lands, whole Villages, were given. There were ways and means created for the daily running expences of temples for poojas, food program for poor(Dhanam), daily, monthly, annual local temple festivals that must be the only entertainment for those people in that period. All this temples and treasures are still exist, god only knows what is the worth of it.
Hope today's so called Emperors 'hope politically correct' do not loot it.