Some time earlier, I was on this southern India tour and Kerala was one of the places that I happened to have fortunately visited. It's one of the few never-to-miss-out on things in your life. The beauty of the place is truly breath-taking. Every place is an exotic scenery of its own kind. And the best thing is you don't have to travel a lot to find that picture perfect scenery. Just a peep through your home's window or a casual evening walk to the end of the lane in which your house is located would suffice.
These were a few such picture perfect moments of nature during my stay there...
The last place we visited was the beautiful temple of Sri Anantha Padmanabha Swamy in tiruvananthapuram.
This temple had a history dating back to early medieval times. The temple gave its name to Kerala’s state capital Thiruvananthapuram. ‘Thiru’ ‘Anantha’ ‘Puram’ means Sacred Abode of Lord Anantha Padmanabha. It was an enormously magnificent temple full of exquisite granite pillars and erotic sculptures. The main idol of the padmanabha swamy looks something like the one below except there are three doors separating the view into three parts: Face of the Lord and Siva Linga underneath his hand in the first door, Brahma seated on lotus emanating from the Lord's navel along with the "Utsava moorthi" and deities of Lord MahaVishnu, Sreedevi and Bhoodevi in the second door and the Lord's feet in the third door.
But the most amazingly hidden fact all this time since many hundreds of years was that there were six secret chambers underneath the temple that held highly unimaginable amounts of precious stones and ornaments. An excerpt on the actual findings goes...
" Archeologists say the current estimation of the value of the articles found in the temple vaults may not be realistic as they could fetch fancy prices in auctioning. The search yielded gold idols, golden crowns, 1,200 gold chains, numerous golden staffs, golden plates, sacks of gold coins of 1732 vintage, diamonds, including Belgium diamonds, and precious stones, rubies and emeralds. It turned out to be a virtual treasure trove with gold coins dating back thousands of years, gold necklaces as long as 18 feet and weighing about 10 kg, about one tonne of the yellow metal in the shape of rice trinkets. 536 kh gold coins, 16 kg of gold coins dating back to the East India Company period, three kg coins from Napoleon's era, 16 kg Travancore gold coins, precious stones wrapped in silk bundles besides small elephants made of the yellow metal, rare sapphire stones and more than 2000 rubies. Coins from other princely states like Vijayanagar Empire and European countries have also been found which might be part of the gifts received by the rulers of the time. The coins also reflect on the revenue received by the royal state through its maritime spice trade. Besides there were heap of ornaments, stone-studded crowns, vessels, platters, lamps, solid gold objects and a wide range of other curios of immense heritage and intrinsic value were found out."
It was said that these treasures were stored in the secret chambers by the then Maharaja of the travancore empire, Sri Marthanda Varma in order to meet the contingency plans and disaster recovery in case Tipu Sultan proved to be an imminent threat to the kingdom. It was a well known fact that Tipu Sultan had already been raiding many of the northern kerala temples by then.
Not for one second did anyone of us, who were there in that temple that day, imagine that we were standing right above all those precious things at that very moment. True, that treasures have been found through out history, but to be there at the very place and to not realize that sometime down the future that would be the exact same place where enormous treasures would be found... is something incredible!
These were a few such picture perfect moments of nature during my stay there...
The last place we visited was the beautiful temple of Sri Anantha Padmanabha Swamy in tiruvananthapuram.
This temple had a history dating back to early medieval times. The temple gave its name to Kerala’s state capital Thiruvananthapuram. ‘Thiru’ ‘Anantha’ ‘Puram’ means Sacred Abode of Lord Anantha Padmanabha. It was an enormously magnificent temple full of exquisite granite pillars and erotic sculptures. The main idol of the padmanabha swamy looks something like the one below except there are three doors separating the view into three parts: Face of the Lord and Siva Linga underneath his hand in the first door, Brahma seated on lotus emanating from the Lord's navel along with the "Utsava moorthi" and deities of Lord MahaVishnu, Sreedevi and Bhoodevi in the second door and the Lord's feet in the third door.
But the most amazingly hidden fact all this time since many hundreds of years was that there were six secret chambers underneath the temple that held highly unimaginable amounts of precious stones and ornaments. An excerpt on the actual findings goes...
" Archeologists say the current estimation of the value of the articles found in the temple vaults may not be realistic as they could fetch fancy prices in auctioning. The search yielded gold idols, golden crowns, 1,200 gold chains, numerous golden staffs, golden plates, sacks of gold coins of 1732 vintage, diamonds, including Belgium diamonds, and precious stones, rubies and emeralds. It turned out to be a virtual treasure trove with gold coins dating back thousands of years, gold necklaces as long as 18 feet and weighing about 10 kg, about one tonne of the yellow metal in the shape of rice trinkets. 536 kh gold coins, 16 kg of gold coins dating back to the East India Company period, three kg coins from Napoleon's era, 16 kg Travancore gold coins, precious stones wrapped in silk bundles besides small elephants made of the yellow metal, rare sapphire stones and more than 2000 rubies. Coins from other princely states like Vijayanagar Empire and European countries have also been found which might be part of the gifts received by the rulers of the time. The coins also reflect on the revenue received by the royal state through its maritime spice trade. Besides there were heap of ornaments, stone-studded crowns, vessels, platters, lamps, solid gold objects and a wide range of other curios of immense heritage and intrinsic value were found out."
It was said that these treasures were stored in the secret chambers by the then Maharaja of the travancore empire, Sri Marthanda Varma in order to meet the contingency plans and disaster recovery in case Tipu Sultan proved to be an imminent threat to the kingdom. It was a well known fact that Tipu Sultan had already been raiding many of the northern kerala temples by then.
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| Raja Marthanda Varma |
2 comments:
wow!!!... really it's a different feel for those who were in that place without knowing all these things... If all these treasure is used for public welfare it'l make a huge diff than protecting or just placin it in museum for visitors...
yaa :)... we'll just have to wait to know wat happens
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