The expert committee appointed by the Supreme court to asses the value of the treasure unearthed from the underground chambers of the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple in the state capital, Thiruvananthapuram, began functioning on Monday.
It is chaired by C V Anandabose, vice chancellor of the National Museum Institute. It also has M V Nair of the archeological department; V K Harikumar, executive officer of the temple; B V Raja of the Archeological Survey of India and Vikas Sharma of the Reserve Bank of India.
A Supreme Court bench of judges R V Raveendran and A K Patnaik had appointed the panel last month. The apex court also said the process of assessment must be done secretly and the report given to it. The court also kept in abeyance the opening of the ‘B’ chamber, supposed to be the largest and said to be having huge stocks of gold and silver. The committee is to also examine the issue of opening it and report to the SC. The judges have also said the valuation should be done without a break, till the completion.
Chambers ‘A’ (since opened) and ‘B’ has not been opened for about 150 years. The other chambers were closed for decades. Treasure was found in all. The temple was the official repository of the personal and state wealth of the erstwhile ruling house of the kingdom of Travancore.
The panel has been directed to grade the unearthed articles in three categories — those having historic and antique value, those having only physical value and utensils and jewellery for daily use in the temple. The media, of which the court was critical, is not to be told anything on the assessment.
The many reports on the treasure hunt and finds has created a huge flow of pilgrims to the centuries-old temple, especially on weekends. According to reports, the number had risen 10-fold last month. On an average, 120 litres of payasam (kheer) used to be prepared daily and this has increased to 450 litres. The number of daily receipts for archana used to be 250-330; it has risen to over 2,000.
A major chunk of the devotees are from outside the state; the number of foreign visitors has also risen. A lot of security arrangements, including commando deployment in and around the temple, is now a feature. This has created problems for devotees, as they have to undergo various checks before go-ing inside.
