Sree Padmanabhaswamy TempleIn July 2011, the Sree Anantha Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, captured world headlines when vast wealth was discovered in its vaults, catapulting it to the position of the world’s richest temple. The wealth came to light as a result of on-going litigation concerning control of the ancient temple. The Supreme Court of India ordered an inventory of the temple’s six sacred vaults. Four of the vaults, which are opened regularly, contained no surprises. The remaining two, denoted A and B by the court and said to be unopened for centuries, caused great excitement. A media frenzy ensued after vault A was opened in the presence of a committee appointed by the court. Heaps of gold coins, hundreds of big gold chains, crowns, Deities and other precious valuables of antiquity lay buried under broken dusty cabinets. News of the “treasure” dominated TV screens and newspapers. In no time, fake photos circulated on the Internet. Rumored figures of the value of the wealth neared 38 billion dollars. The flow of misinformation, so-called expert analysis and suggestions for use of this wealth have continued since. The Supreme Court explicitly rejected all hypothetical estimates valuing the find: “What is appearing in the newspapers is just surmises and conjectures.” The temple, located at Kerala’s southern end, is a trust managed and administrated by the erstwhile royal family of Travancore, the former princely state of the area. The temple Deity, Lord Vishnu, is represented by Sri Padmanabha reclining on the serpent Anantha. The unusual, 18-foot-long murti is made of 12,000 shaligram stones brought from the Gandaki river in Nepal. Indian law allows a State government to seize control of a religious institution that is being mismanaged. As a result, for example, nearly all the temples in Tamil Nadu–including the incomparable Chidambaram Temple–are now under state control. [Hinduism Today, which has followed this issue since the 1980s, has never discovered a case where the law was used to seize an institution of any other religion.] T.P. SundararajanHistory of the Case In 2007, T. P. Sundara Rajan and Sri Padmanabhan brought a case claiming mismanagement and misappropriation of the temple assets. On January 31, 2011, Kerala’s High Court ordered that control of the temple pass to the State. The royal family appealed to India’s Supreme Court, which responded by ordering an inventory of the temple’s assets. After opening vault A on June 28 and inspecting its riches, the committee observed a snake insignia on the door of vault B–a warning that opening it is prohibited by divine sanction. Many fear that opening the vault could lead to calamity for the city and personal harm to the royal family. This omen gained credence even among skeptics when one original petitioner, T. P. Sundara Rajan, died just days after the opening of vault A. His untimely demise led to comparisons with the supposed curse upon those who, in 1922, opened the tomb of the Egyptian King Tutankhamun–which was also guarded by the image of a snake. Sundara Rajan’s death, interpreted as divine retribution, caused considerable alarm in the city. Before the court’s judgment regarding the opening vault B, several respected astrologers sought to divine the will of the Deity by conducting a ceremony called Ashtamangala Devaprasnam at the request of the royal family. They reported that the contents of vault A had been defiled by the investigation and that opening Vault B would incur the Deity’s displeasure. Initial attempts to open Vault B in July failed and, to date, no further attempt has been made. My First-Hand Report In September, I requested assignment from Hinduism Today to go to Kerala and explore the situation. I found the topic on everyone’s mind in Trivandrum. Many sided with the royal family, who are held in the highest regard here. Some told me that Sundara Rajan’s case had been vindictive in nature, that he was unhappy with his treatment by temple officers and sought revenge on the Maharaja, Uthradom Tirunal Marthanda Varma. The second petitioner, Padmanabhan, is a temple worker who was suspended for alleged misconduct. I learned how deep feelings are running there when I asked my taxi driver if he thought the Maharaja was stealing the temple’s wealth, as accused. He stopped short in the busy road, angrily slapped his head and let out a stream of Malayalam curses against those questioning the Maharaja’s honesty. I took that as a “No.” Sree Anantha PadmanabhaswamyStaking Claim to the Treasure When the Supreme Court ordered the opening of the six vaults on June 18, 2011, they appointed a seven-member expert committee headed by C. V. Ananda Bose, the director general of National Museums. The committee included representatives of the Archeological Survey of India (ASI), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), retired judges of the Kerala High Court, the Maharaja and Jaya Kumar, the high-ranking Additional Chief Secretary of Kerala’s state government. The reports of vault A’s contents generated an avalanche of suggestions on what do with the wealth–even though the Chief Minister of Kerala, Oommen Chandy, stated, “No part of the wealth belongs to any person except the Deity, Lord Padmanabhaswamy.” Under Indian law, the Deity of a temple is a “juristic person,” and all of the temple properties and wealth are held in the Deity’s name. This principle was honored even under British rule. (Recently London courts reaffirmed the principle in the case of a 12th-century Nataraja murti that had been stolen from the ancient Pathur Temple in Tamil Nadu. Police confiscated the Deity from the British Museum in 1982, and it was eventually returned to India.) At stake in the Padmanabha Temple case is not the right to own the wealth, but the control of it, and of the temple itself, both of which are now under the royal family’s oversight. Several such government takeovers (such as that of the Tiruvattar Kesava Perumal temple in Tamil Nadu) have been followed by systematic looting of the temple’s wealth by persons in connivance with the priests. Tiruvattar, which belonged to the same royal family, was known to be richer than Padmanabhaswamy Temple. In the 1990s it came to light that a huge amount of gold decorations for the Deity had been replaced with copper plates. It is speculated that the temple has vaults similar to those at Padhmanabha. Kerala’s Communist Party Leader, V. S. Achutanandan, an atheist, claimed that the Padmanabha wealth belongs to the people and demanded it be used for social welfare programs. Others suggested displaying the sacred treasures and murtis in a Louvre-like museum. Some advocated an auction, with the proceeds going toward education, development, roads or even reduction of India’s national debt. Shashi Tharoor, a member of parliament from Trivandrum and a former Foreign Affairs Minister, told a local news channel, “I object to those who are anxious to be generous with other people’s money. It’s important that we honor the sanctity of the temple and its possessions. It is the symbol of the city. “ Central to the petitioners’ request for takeover of the temple is the claim that the temple was always under control of a committee, and not the king. The committee consisted of six brahmins and a secretary and was presided over by the Namboodiri Chief Priest. These eight members–called the Ettara Yogam and appointed by the king–managed the temple. Eetta means “eight” and ara (for arasan) means “king.” Shungoony Menon, author of A History of Travancore, mistranslated ettara as “eight and a half,” claiming that the king had only a half vote in temple affairs. This reference was used by the petitioners to argue that the king held only nominal power, and thus, could not assert control of the temple. In a joint statement, experts Prof. Shashibushan, Dr. Raja and Uma, countered this claim, saying, “No voting system ever existed, there are no records to show that this 8-1/2 voting, or any voting system existed. This is a completely English concept that had influenced the writer’s opinions and is a distortion of history.” Other scholars, including Elankulam Kunjanan Pillai and Dr. A.G. Menon, also dismissed Shungoony Menon’s half-vote theory.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 06:46:10 +0000
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