The legal process in the Supreme Court pertaining to the famous Sree Padmanabha Swamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala is set to get further complicated as the erstwhile royal family of Travancore, once the custodian of the shrine, is determined to oppose any move to open and examine the second of the six temple cellars that hold invaluable treasures.
Members of the former royal family are saying that they will not allow the opening of Cellar B, second of the six vaults at the temple, perhaps the richest Hindu shrine in the world. According to them such a step is against the will of the deity of the centuries-old shrine. They also term as wrong the argument that Cellar B had been opened many times in the past.
“We are unhappy about this. We won’t allow the opening of the vault. It cannot be opened without the permission of the royalty,” Aswathy Thirunnal Gauri lakshmi Bayi, one of the senior-most members of the erstwhile royal family told the media. She said the communities of priests and scholars were also against the move to open the cellar.
SC had last week said that Cellar B of the temple should be opened after consultations with the royal family for assessing and documenting the treasures. It had observed that this would not hurt anybody’s sentiments though the royalty’s counsel objected to the idea of opening the vault saying that it would be against belief.
A committee appointed by the apex court had examined the other five vaults at the temple in 2011 and Cellar A, said to be as important to the shrine as Cellar B, was found to hold gold, silver, precious stones, ancient coins, etc whose material value alone could come to over Rs 125,000 crore.
Cellar B could not be opened and its contents could not be assessed and documented at that time due to the objections raised by the members of the former royal family. The family’s objections to the vault’s opening is not based on any issues related to temple rituals but they are saying that such a step could make the deity unhappy and lead to undesirable developments.
A Devaprasnam, astrological examination, held at the temple in August, 2011 in connection with this had concluded that death and destruction could visit upon anybody who tried to open Cellar B and his relatives. It also predicted that those who touched Cellar B could die of poison consumption or snake bite.
“The royal family will not be responsible at all for any unfortunate developments ensuing from the opening of the vault,” said Aswathy Thirunnal. On former CAG Vinod Rai’s finding that the cellar had been opened seven times in the past, she said it was not the cellar but its ante-chamber that had been opened and the ante-chamber could have been mistaken for the vault.
The erstwhile royal family’s main argument against the opening of the underground cellar, which is situated at a crucial part of the temple and, according to rumours, had gold and silver blocks kept in dozens of giant steel vaults, could affect the divinity and sacredness of the shrine’s idol and sanctum sanctorum.
According to temple administration sources, Cellar B has two levels and had been sealed with doors made out of rocks. They say that there is no known way to open these rock doors. An effort had been made to open the cellar on June 30, 2011 but it had to be abandoned. The apex court had then said the vault should not be opened till further orders.
“The royal family should cite the actual reason for their objections to the opening of the vault instead of citing matters of belief and stories about snakes,” said historian MG Sasibhooshan. “They should cite reasons that are logical and convincing. Otherwise it would further strengthen the suspicions some people already have about them,” he told the media.