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$22 Billion In Gold, Diamonds, Jewels Found In Indian Temple
- brianbreslin 15y agoAm I the only one who had flashes of being a little kid watching Indiana Jones pop into his head after reading this? It would be nice if they could use the gold for something beneficial to the people of the area (improve roads or schools or something), but its naive of me to think they can easily sell this stuff. Maybe loan the treasures to museums for a fee?
- sorbus 15y agoYou are definitely not the only one (although I never watched Indiana Jones; pop culture osmosis is an amazing thing). The article did mention that a lot of the historic pieces are probably going to end up in museums, depending on the outcome of the discussion about who should control the riches. It would not surprise me if a small amount of it is sold at auction, either to museums or private collectors. Renting them out or loaning them to museums would be a much better outcome, though - I hate to hear about works of art that are held in private collections, and not even sporadically publicly viewable.
- jasim 15y agoIt is a very contentious issue: the wealth belongs to the Temple trust which is controlled by the erstwhile Royal family. Also, the Government has no say on it since it was donated to the Temple by private entities even before the govt. was formed. Even if the court decides that the control of the wealth should go to the government, there is going to be huge contention since the donations were religious in nature, and has such strong connotation.
- localhost3000 15y agoIt belongs in a museum!
- hsmyers 15y agoCurrent reports (see BBC online) mention amounts in the 100s of millions, not billions. That said the latest today was that they had to stop when they forced a door only to find an all iron door just behind it. They are taking a break so that the local supreme court and other authorities can talk things over (most likely preliminary division of the spoils?)
- sateesh 15y agoA small correction, you should be telling 'local court' not 'local supreme court'. Supreme court is the highest court of law in India and this opening of vaults of temple is being supervised by the Supreme court.
- zeteo 15y ago>$22 billion [...] is likely a conservative estimate [...] the panel is simple counting and weighing the valuables. "Their value, including antique value, is not being assessed" A quick back of the envelope calculation indicates $22 billion corresponding to 450 metric tons of gold. This is an immense quantity: India's current gold reserve is about 615 tons [1], and there were recent years when it dropped under 400. I will take this report with a grain of salt until it receives very strong confirmation. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_reserve#Officially_reported_gold_holdings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_reserve#Officially_reporte...
- brianbreslin 15y agoThe find includes gems too, diamonds, etc. So those push up the value immensely, and command a higher value per kg than gold (I'm assuming).
- zeteo 15y agoThe article mentions gold coins and gold statues encrusted with gems, and that they're estimating the value by weight only. Since the encrusted gems can't be weighed separately, and furthermore the value of a precious stone strongly depends on quality not just weight, the estimate can only be based on the weight of the precious metal, IMO.
- xtacy 15y agoAlso, the valuation might be higher due to its historical value.
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- Shenglong 15y agoKeep in mind that a 3 carat red diamond is worth about $20,000,000... as an example I'm not sure what the geology is around there, or what India's historical gem cutting practices were... but I wouldn't say this is impossible. Maybe... haha, this sixth door is the key to the world ending in 2012 :P
- hacjjjjjjjj 15y agoIndia had thousands of such temples for example, Somanatha etc. from which Arabs, Mughals and the crazy British took from it. When British came to India, india was the richest country and when they left India, India was the poorest country. Whites people have bad culture.
- harichinnan 15y agoI'm an Indian and a hindu. I've been to that temple. It's really sad to think that there would thousands of people around that temple who would go hungry as we speak and this temple has wealth that will pretty much stay locked up for the rest of humanity. It'll never get invested. No next google would come from thiruvanandapuram because of this. People would go on their lives living in terrible houses, driving terrible vehicles on atrocious roads. And Hindu fanatics would organize protests at the first mention of using this for any practical purpose.
- tejaswiy 15y agoConsidering local government corruption, I'd actually be happy if it wasn't used for 'practical' purposes if the government gets to control all this wealth.
- abhaga 15y agoI doubt it is the lack of money which is the primary cause of the state of our society. No amount of money can bring out a society from the corruption & mismanagement. By all means, let us use part of the treasure for public good (I say part since I assume the historical/antique value for majority of it). But unless we manage to fix our system, we will be back to broken roads and shabby houses very soon.
- quasi 15y agoIt's about feeding a man vs. teaching him to find his food. All the collected wealth will vanish if we use it to feed people. People/Communities/Governments have to learn to build wealth and not live off it. Some part of this can go into making the land a better place but I think the most important use of it is to make the people proud and want to live better and build more wealth (hence standard of living). A large part of this treasure should be proudly displayed in a fantastic Museum.
- SingAlong 15y agoThe last time I checked India's debt is $310+ billion. A lot of this treasure would be ornaments, which would seem repeated if kept in museums. They might as well auction this off to pay debt. Handing such massive wealth to people will only result in it's disappearance :P
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- fakeer 15y agoBetter demolish the bloody temple and errect sth meaningful there.
- Cherian 15y agoFeels adventurous to live in the vicinity of this temple :-). A bit like watching Indiana Jones.
- tejaswiy 15y agoWhat do you make of the whole tug of war on who gets to control the wealth?
- andrewflnr 15y agoSo these vaults haven't been opened in over a century, and the only reason they're being opened now is because someone is concerned with how a trust fund is managing them? Excuse me, managing how? I guess that's the question, but it still makes me laugh.
- blutonium 15y agoThe Wiki article uses "security" instead of "management". If I were a judge and someone told me $22B in treasure wasn't behind miles of lasers, I might take some judicial liberties too.
- train_robber 15y agoIncredible to think that I used to walk around this place almost every other day while I was in school. On another note; the kings of the old Travancore (who built this temple) were known for living a very austere life compared to the other Maharajas. They did invest in a lot of infrastructure during their time; mostly during the last half of the 19th century and early 20th century. There was an urban legend in my city (according to my grandmother) that in the event of an emergency the kings of Travancore had enough wealth to pull back the country out of it. This probably was it. I wouldn't really blame the kings for storing this under the vaults; it was intended to be used for famines and such; it wasn't as if they enjoyed any of this. The complicated history of Travancore is probably the reason why it stayed hidden for so long. What happens to this now is the big question. There's going to be a big argument amongst the secularists, the spiritualists, the archaeologists and finally the government regarding this. Atleast it made my city famous :)
- sagarun 15y agoHistory of the temple https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Padmanabhaswamy_Temple https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Padmanabhaswa...
- arihant 15y agoThis is just from one of the two vaults unopened in like 150 years, and its still in progress. They still do not have full permission to do inventory on second untouched vault. If I was the royal family, I'd buy Facebook.
- notlion 15y agoI really resent the way that the dollar amount is cited rather than the historical, cultural, and spiritual value. It's totally awe inspiring nonetheless!
- mattiask 15y agoAm I the only one freaked out by this passage? Wasn't this like the opening scene from the "The Mumy"? "The panel managed to open the sixth vault but found an iron wall inside it, reports the BBC. The sixth vault has a snake on the front door and quoting an unnamed royal family source, it reports that opening it "might be a bad omen." The Guardian reports that the sixth vault has "special locks" but experts should be able to examine them and open it by Friday."