Treasure Worth An Estimated $20 Billion Discovered In Sree Padmanabhaswamy Indian Temple (VIDEO)

Jackpot!

An estimated $20 billion and counting in gold, diamonds, statues and other valuables have been discovered in an Indian Hindu temple, according to reports.

The incredible treasure trove was stored for approximately 140 years among five vaults in the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple, located in southern state of Kerala. Police are now on guard around-the-clock to prevent looters from rushing the building.

A decision regarding how to proceed with the treasure is expected later this week, once the size of the entire find is evaluated.

Watch the Huffington Post report above.

Comments

[artboxone]

01:07 PM on 07/12/2011

"The head of a former royal family renounced any personal claim to billions of dollars' worth of ancient treasure discovered in a temple in Thiruvanantharam, the kingdom his ancestors once ruled...

" 'By 1750 Travancore had become rich and big. So my ancestor, the then king, made a unique spiritual and historical contribution. He decided to surrender all his riches to the temple - [saying that] our family would look after that wealth, the temple and the kingdom forever.'

" '...But please don't remove those objects from the temple. They belong to nobody, certainly not to our family. They belong to god and our law permits that.'

"...PRS: But you cannot deny that such wealth could be put to better use for the poor.

"Varma: We Indians are more educated now. But this reaction to donations inside a temple is anything but progressive. We are slowly losing our Indian identity. Money has become everything. But I am not surprised. I would rather be philosophical than disillusioned because I can't change the world...' "

http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/interviews/The-riches-belong-to-nobody-certainly-not-to-our-family/Article1-719270.aspx

[artboxone]

01:46 PM on 07/09/2011

Ongoing mis-appropriation of temple funds:

More than two-thirds of Temple revenues, the cash gifts given by Hindu devotees
is being diverted to Muslims and Christians for their Religious activities, and
perhaps a small portion goes for "Social Causes" sponsored by Atheistic
Governments.

This does not include the Land Grab by the State, which simply "donates" Temple
Lands for building Memorials to Fake Indian Nethas, Colleges ...

As per data received from the Revenue Section of Tourism and Temples, Government
of Karnataka, and published by the Art of Living Foundation in Arsha Vidya
Newsletter of Decemeber 2003, Hindu Temples received a total of 391.4 Crores
Rupees during the five-year period 1997 to 2002, which was "spent" as follows:-

Temple Expenses - - - - 84.0 Crore (21.46%)
Madrassa Haj - - - - 180.4 Crore (46%)
Church - - - - 44.0 Crore (11.24%)
OTHERS - - - - 83.0 Crore (21.2%)
TOTAL 391.4 Crore

As can be seen only a little over one fifth of the Temple revenues are being
utilised for the Temples' work.

twenty percent appears to have been deployed for Secular Government...

Sixty percent is being used for Churches and Mosques and the christians and
mohammedans running them to carry out their tasks of Soul Harvesting,
Subversion, Secession, Iconoclasty, Ethnic Cleansing and other Social
Activities.

http://haindavakeralam.com/HKPage.aspx?PageID=14204&SKIN=B

[WorkersUnited]

07:17 AM on 07/09/2011

So when is the US going to go to India to "liberate the people"?

[vkmo]

03:09 PM on 07/08/2011

Where are the photos of the treasures of gold, jewels, coins, art, jewelry, statues? The whole world is anxious to look at this beautiful find of great historical importance.

Now we know why North India's Somnath temple was brutally attacked and ransacked in 1024 by Ghazni Mohammad and attacks to Somnath were repeated in history. Many temples lost their wealth due to similar brutal attacks by invaders of other religions. Safety of Travancore Royal Family's and temple's wealth is important. All discovered gold, precious stones and art should be carefully photographed and cataloged. Some of this wealth should be displayed in a museum with a fee which should be intended for the poor. After careful inventory, the remainder should be sold and the proceeds should go for the welfare of the people of Kerala State and India. Travancore Royal Family should also receive part of the proceeds.

[BipesImplumis]

01:12 PM on 07/08/2011

The "erstwhile royal family of India"? Who the heck is that? The last I checked the last unifying ruler of India was King George VI. Maybe they mean the former Maharaja of those few former southern states. Wasn't it Trivandrum? (It's always dangerous to use Fox news as your primary news source as they did with this report.)

Another thing, for all of you who think that India is one big shanty like you saw in Slumdog Millionaire, Kerala has the highest Human Development Index in India and the highest education/literacy rate. Kerala has the lowest birth rate, gender parity, and the highest life expectancy of India. IT also ranks as the least corrupt state and has one of the best transport networks. You can thank all of those wealth-redistributing communists for that. They also have very low sectarianism, while having the highest coexistent concentration of Christians and Muslims in India. (I had a Muslim driver in Cochin that happily sent his kids to Catholic school.) I think you can credit a highly secular government for that too.

All in all, with it's architecture, climate and cuisine all taken into account, it's almost more apt to compare Kerala with Thailand than with the rest of India.

The States of India are highly independent. It's unlikely to think that Kerala is expected to solve the rest of the nation's problems with it's new windfall. It's even less likely than expecting Oregonians to bail out Minnesota.

[Tenjikuronin]

03:57 PM on 07/10/2011

^A good advertisement for Kerala. You must be on the board of Tourism....

[BipesImplumis]

06:06 PM on 07/10/2011

Ha. No. Just a tourist. I just like to convince people that if you want to see India it's not necessary to do slum tourism. A lot of people so equate India with misery that they feel they haven't seen the "real India" until they've walked through the slums of Calcutta. It's pathos tourism.

[Iron100]

02:38 AM on 07/08/2011

it's funny how western news media connect this cultural wealth with poverty as if india should not have cultural riches if they have poor people. Better take care of homeless people in the west first.

[artboxone]

12:40 PM on 07/07/2011

From a Keralite:

..."In Kerala Oomen Chandy, Chief Minister, has decided that he cannot appropriate the wealth of Lord Padmanabha, the presiding deity. Even the Marxist historian K.N.Pannikar has seen the dangers of the Kerala state appropriating the temple’s wealth. It would be misused by corrupt bureaucrats and other hangers on under the pretext of development...

The Times of India has [written about] the royal family and its history of service to Kerala. [They] did not indulge in profligacy but patronized art and culture, [living] a relatively austere life in the forefront of social reform. In 1936 there was the famous Proclamation on Temple Entry whereby Hindu temples were thrown open to all Hindus regardless of their caste. The death penalty was abolished. The women of the royal family became pioneers of women’s education and so on (See ‘Lord Vishnu’s royal servants guard his riches’ Ananthakrishnan G. , Times of India, July 5, 2011)...

It is imperative that Hindus/Indians unite to defend the dharmic purposes intended by Raja Marthanda Varma when he sequestered the money wisely in the 18th century away from possible invaders and subsequently sequestered by the royal family against the colonial looters of the British Raj. At present the neo colonial looters are hovering around and they too must be identified and roundly defeated in their nefarious purpose of stealing the nation’s wealth.

http://haindavakeralam.com/HKPage.aspx?PageID=14206

[frank1946]

09:56 AM on 07/07/2011

Indiana Jones missed this one !

Wonderful for the Spiritual and Cultural History of this area !

They should take the Treasure on a Tour of India !

[SpoonieLuv]

11:59 PM on 07/06/2011

Why not keep the treasure in the temple? The cultural value of such a collection could help attract more tourism to the area.

[Pauline Jaing]

09:51 PM on 07/06/2011

Such a moralistic pontifical way of thought on both the left and right! The value of gold, or diamonds, etc. is based on the labor time it takes to find them and create objects (commodities) from them. That would of course include the "expeditions" to find them, etc. Gold is very rare, thus it takes an enormous amount of already created value to find it.

The only thing there is in common between one commodity and another is the labor time it took to create the commodity for sale -- there is NOTHING else in common between a brick and a hair pin, and no other way whatsoever to set prices.

As to what to do with it, wealth is created by public works just as much as anything else -- clean drinking water, ample food, etc. ALL make for a MUCH more productive work force, but our dumbo Republicans think finance is the only wealth.

I think they are blind -- they think a set of keys gets made by MONEY, not by miners getting the ore out of the ground, and machinists stamping the keys, etc. etc. etc.

REAL wealth is the circulation of added value, and that comes ONLY from labor, so think again.

[bmermaid]

01:34 AM on 07/07/2011

You make a good point, but the thing that makes today different is the Futures Market, which changes the value of commondities by speculation; gambling on the future really. IMHO, I think it should be illegal.

[Pauline Jaing]

07:33 AM on 07/07/2011

I agree, it should be illegal, because it raises FALSE capital, its like a bullt in bubble maker because it is not real value.

[Mr Crabs]

09:22 PM on 07/06/2011

For all those cons here that think spending this is redistribution of wealth, the creation of the treasure was a redistribution of wealth in itself.

And a conservative's idea is to hoard all wealth until everyone else in the country is poor. There's a difference when you think about things on a national vs personal level. You can save and save but all that does is take money out of circulation and concentrate it in the hands of a few wealthy individuals and leave everyone poorer ie this Indian temple case. Conservatives have no idea on what actually creates wealth.

This was definitely a redistribution of wealth but from the many poor to one rich temple, but this time religion duped the masses on taking money that could have gone toward actual investment or at the very least a good meal, and drop it off into a deep abyss basically never to be seen again.

[hgus]

09:52 PM on 07/06/2011

Very nice post. Too bad this string is so quiet and only a few will see it!

F&F

[SoldAmerican]

12:49 PM on 07/07/2011

First blow up the Vatican and the Southern Baptist mega churches and all their riches,

[spiralskydancer]

09:11 PM on 07/06/2011

been to india (twice)....first thing that comes to mind is....toilets....build lots and lots of public toilets...

[Tenjikuronin]

01:25 AM on 07/07/2011

Why?

[surlyguvna]

02:20 PM on 07/07/2011

Just cop a squat anywhere...everyone else does.

[SoldAmerican]

05:28 PM on 07/06/2011

Isn't it amazing to read the Iefties plan for how to spend the money, while they are usually cIueless about how to build wealth?

LOL :)

[climbing panda]

06:42 PM on 07/06/2011

cause they're only interested in redistribution.

[antrich4000]

07:24 PM on 07/06/2011

250 billion poor and destitute people in India, what about that do you not understand. I would be good and the right thing if this find would go to help them. I can see no better use of the money. And the building wealth you talk about, for whom?

[SoldAmerican]

07:28 PM on 07/06/2011

What YOU don't understand is, the liberal left congress party has been in power 90% of the time since India came to be. So who needs to own up to the poverty and economics in India?

Imagine if the far lefties of the democrats were in power since the US came to be.. it would lilke India too!

[SoldAmerican]

05:24 PM on 07/06/2011

Remember the British queens crown has the "Kohinoor" diamond that was stolen from India and the Brits are not giving it back.

I bet the Royal family of UK are discussing this matter as we speaking going, how did they miss looting this from this temple?

And the Islamists are going, "Dang we ought not have stopped with IsIamic iconoclasm in the northern India, we should have done the same h0rrible thing to the South of India as well!

[NotBetterThanYou]

02:40 AM on 07/07/2011

The Royal Family? The 'Brits are not giving it back'? Really?

OK SoldAmerican. First you give California back to Mexico. And get out of Guam. And the Phillipines. And Puerto Rico. And Guantanamo. And the Marianas and Samoa. I'm sure the Spanish will be as glad to get their colonies back as the Indians will about their diamond.

THEN you can helpfully point out and fix up everyone else's problems.

You conservative americans are unbelievable. Bashing the UK and it's royals? It's like you don't even realise who your friends are in your rush to feel superior to everyone.

[Grimmsd]

03:44 PM on 07/07/2011

Nope. California revolted from Mexico 5 days before they "gave" it to the US. So Mexico effectively just relinquished any claim they had on California. California was an independent state when it became a US territory.
We are out of the Philippines.
Puerto Rico is a US territory and they like it that way.
So is Guam etc.
Guantanamo is a lease. It doesn't have an end date. It's a legal contract.

As far as the ownership of the diamond... I don't have an opinion. I don't know the circumstances.

[SoldAmerican]

05:22 PM on 07/06/2011

Why is the word "Loot" being used here? IF this is loot so is the entire Vatican.