IN 1980, when we were on South India’s trip, we went to see the famous temple of Padmanabhan Trivandrum, managed  and cared  by Travancore Royal Family. Although we were quite impressed to see the beauty and architectural sculpture (with erotic sculpture like Khujraho and temples of Pushkar in Ajmer) of the surrounding area of the temple, we were not aware that this temple was so rich and had many underground vaults called tehkhanas. This temple is situated in the east fort of Thiruvananthapuram, capital of Kerala state. The touching boundary of temple is close to Arab Sagar.

During that same trip we also had darshan of Tirupati Bala Jee, which is considered to be the richest one in entire India. Now we can see that the temple is much behind in matter of wealth. The wealth of gold, diamonds, jewels and jewellery is estimated at roughly more than one lakh crore. But it looks like more than five lakh crores.

Actually, Padmanabhaswamy is incarnation of Lord Vishnu in eternal sleeping, and due to his sleeping pose he is called in Sanskrit as Anant Shayanam. The pose of Lord Vishnu is surrounded by various alert snakes including Shesh Nag, the lord of all snakes.

Recently, in June 2011, the underground vaults (tehkhanas) were opened by order of Supreme Court and only then it came to light that there was such huge treasure, the biggest in the world.

It is very clear that the recently opened vault has more wealth than imagined by people. Keeping myths and facts about this aside we have to think how to utilize this huge treasurer? Earlier, immense wealth was discovered in private rooms of Satya Sai Baba.

It is common fact that farmers of south and other parts of India are committing suicide due to poverty and heavy loans. One third population of the country cannot even afford two meals a day.

Considering all these things it is moral duty of the people to utilize this money for the welfare of poor and deprived people.