21 Facts About The Treasure Under The Padmanabhaswamy Temple That Will Make You Go WTF

How much gold have you seen in real life?

Forget that, what’s the most amount of gold you have seen on television? Uncle scrooge’s vault?

Or the treasure room from the movie The Mummy?

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Or maybe you went to Tirupati and talk about the amount of gold there was on the temple and thought that it had the most gold there could be in any temple.

Well, you probably haven’t heard of the Padmanabhaswamy Temple.

1. And it is perfectly understandable if you haven’t. It looks like any regular South Indian temple

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Albeit very beautiful at night.

 

2. And like every temple in India, it is regularly visited by dignitaries.

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Because it is believed to be a very potent temple.

 

3. But below the surface, deep underground lie chambers filled with treasure.

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I know it sounds like a fairy tale but it’s true. There are underground chambers where all the wealth is kept hidden from all the invaders in our history.

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4. A treasure that has been accumulated by the Travancore royal family for literally thousands of years

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The oldest treasures date back to 200 B.C. The treasure has been accumulated for thousands and thousands of years.

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5. Such a treasure cannot lie without oversight, because it can be tampered with, and hence the Supreme Court ordered an inventory

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So that corrupt people do not make away with the priceless treasures. Temple mismanagement has happened very often in India.

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6. These treasures are kept in 6 secret vaults – and vaults is actually a term. They are big rooms named A to F.

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7. Out of these vaults A and B have not been opened because they have a curse laid on it. C to F have treasures of unimaginable proportions

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Imagine walking into a chamber full of gold.

 

8. A three and a half feet tall statue of pure gold idol of Mahavishnu with hundreds of pieces of diamonds and gold studded on it

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There was an “anki” (a traditional attire) made of pure gold that weighed 30 kilos.

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9. A gold chain that was 18 feet in length

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And you thought the chains South Indian women wore in weddings were excess.

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10. A gold sheaf weighing 500 kilos

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A sheaf is a thick bundle of grains.

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11. 1200 thick gold chains with a lot of precious stones embedded in them.

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That is a lot of gold chains

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12. Also lying around are sacks full of precious gems, necklaces, and ancient artefacts.

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We, as outsiders do not know what these artefacts look like, or how ancient and unique they are.

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13. Gold coconut shells that are embedded with rubies and sapphires

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Not like the ones in the picture. Imagine full coconuts that are made of pure gold and are studded with diamonds and precious gems.

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14. There are gold coins from the Napoleonic era and also from the roman empire

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These coins are invaluable as they are from a different millennia. Some of them are from the time before Christ was born.

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15. In vault A, there is a horde of gold coins that weighs around 800 kilos and each coin is worth 2.7 crores

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Vault A was ordered to be opened by the Supreme Court so that auditors could inventory the priceless treasure.

 

16. There is a throne fully made of gold and studded with hundreds of diamonds and precious gems.

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Get over the iron throne already.

 

17. There are also golden chairs, pots, jars and crowns

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The whole shebang.

 

18. The total estimation of all this treasure, not taking into account inflation and the antiquity and the cultural value of them is around $18 billion

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This is a conservative estimate. The real estimate might be a lot more when the cultural importance and the historical significance is measure too.

 

19. The biggest chamber B has a snake on its entrance that is deemed by the priest as a warning

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The priests say that the snake is a warning and whoever breaks the seal and goes in will be cursed. Legends also say that there are Devas, Rishis, and also a Yakshi who reside inside these chambers.

A Yakshi is basically a vampire.

Chamber of secrets, anyone?

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20. If the value of B chamber is estimated, the total conservative estimate of the whole assets comes to about $1 TRILLION

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That is the amount of money our country of a billion people makes in a year. That is just vault B.

 

21. That’s more gold than the wealth of Mughals, the Nizam of Hyderabad, the British crown jewels all COMBINED.

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The treasure trove under Padmanabhaswamy temple is the greatest collection of gold and valuables IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND.

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There is no greater treasure anywhere on the planet – hidden or revealed.

Are we still going to be stuck with the British taking away the Koh-i-noor?

We still got hundreds of them, by the looks of it.

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