Kerala temple treasure worth 100K crore?

The inventory of treasures, found in six chambers of Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple, which is maintained by the erstwhile royal family of Travancore, is being prepared by a seven-member Supreme Court-appointed panel.

With two more chambers, which have been named from A to F, left unopened, the work is expected to continue for a few days. On Saturday, the team finished accounting for the contents of chamber A.

Prominent hauls from the temple include an about four-foot-tall golden statue of Lord Vishnu studded with emeralds. Several other statues made of gold, mostly of 2 kg each, were also counted on Saturday.

Security has been beefed up at the temple as the stock taking process continued. Eighty additional personnel of the special armed police will be posted at the temple, a top police police official said.

The main deity of the temple is Padmanabhaswamy, an avatar of Hindu god Vishnu. The temple, whose foundation of the present entrance gateway was laid in 1566 had features a 100-foot, seven-tier tower.

The calculation of the temple's wealth was ordered by the Supreme Court following a petition by advocate T P Sundararajan over mismanagement of the assets.