Guarding Kerala’s Great Temple Treasures

Vattiyoorkavu Krishnan Nair Harikumar,  executive officer of the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple cannot fully describe the riches he sees every day. Mr. Harikumar can’t say how much the treasure, which has been estimated at up to one trillion rupees ($19 billion), is actually worth. “We have no idea because the digital inventory is going on,” he says before giving a mini inventory of his own, listing the items he has seen in the vaults. “There are so many ornaments, very precious stones, gold coins of different nations, gold and silver”. Mr. Harikumar, who claims to be the custodian of all the keys to the vault opens it and takes the articles and gives them to the inventory workers. He estimates that the inventory of Vault A will take another year to complete – it began in February, with 3D images taken of each artifact. Five of the six chambers have been opened but Vault B remains closed after a submission to the Supreme Court from the Travancore royal family that said opening it could unleash a curse. Pramod Kumar KG, the managing director of EKA, a museum consultancy based in South Delhi, says once the inventory of Vault A is finished it could reveal the most intact collection of valuable temple artifacts anywhere in India. Read more

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