Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said on Wednesday that his Government would consider museumising the immense treasures kept in the secret vaults of the ancient Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram. The material value alone of the treasures is put at over `1,00,000 crore making the temple the richest Hindu shrine in the entire world.
Chandy said in the State Assembly that the Government would consider this as per the advice of the Supreme Court which was currently handling a case regarding the affairs of the temple. Historians say the Government’s plan may give rise to controversy depending on how it was going to display such a treasure with immense religious, spiritual and historical importance.
The Chief Minister said that there was no point in trying to find fault with the erstwhile royal family of Travancore, which had been the custodian of the treasure so far, in connection with the reports that parts of the treasure could have been pilfered. “That such a huge treasure is still there in the temple is proof of the trustworthiness of the former royalty,” he said.
The amicus curiae appointed by the Supreme Court to examine the status of the treasure and the affairs of the temple had reported that the treasure could have undergone some pilferage when Uthradam Thirunnal Marthanda Varma, the late head of the royal family, was the trustee of the temple.
Devaswom Minister VS Sivakumar told the Assembly that the Government had not received any report on the alleged pilferage of the temple treasure. “We have not received any such report. We had seen media reports that amicus curiae Gopal Subramaniam had submitted such a report to the Supreme Court,” he said.
Sivakumar said that there was no secret deal between the Government and the royal family. It was the former lDF Government which had given an affidavit in the court saying the temple’s administration was under the royal family and that it would not interfere in its powers, he added.
He said the Government would inform the apex court of its position on the temple affairs before August 6. The State Cabinet had decided to set up an administrative system for the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple on the lines of the one at the famous temple at Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, he said.