title: Padmanabhaswamy Temple

text: On 4 July 2011, the seven-member expert team tasked with taking stock of the temple assets decided to postpone opening of chamber B. This chamber is sealed with an iron door, with the image of a cobra on it, and has not been opened due to the belief that opening it would result in much misfortune. The royal family has also said that opening chamber B could be a bad omen. The seven-member team will consult with some more experts on 8 July 2011, and may make a final decision on opening chamber B. An Ashtamangala Devaprasnam conducted in the Temple to discern the will of the Lord revealed that any attempts to open chamber B would cause divine displeasure, and that the holy articles in the other chambers were defiled in the inventorying process. The original petitioner (T. P. Sundarajan), whose court action led to the inventory, died in July 2011, adding credence to the folklore around the temple. Prior to this now-famous incident in July 2011, one of the several vaults in the temple which was not vaults B (untouched after the 1880s), G, or H (both rediscovered supposedly by the Amicus Curie only in mid-2014), was opened in 1931. This was possibly an antechamber of vaults A, C, D, E, or F that may not have been opened yet. This was necessitated due to the severe economic depression that India was going through. The Palace and State Treasuries had run almost dry. The small group of people, including the king and the priests, found a granary-sized structure almost full with mostly gold and some silver coins and jewels. Surmounted on top of it were hundreds of pure gold pots. There were four coffers filled with gold coins as well. Also found was a larger chest fixed to the ground with six sections in it. They were full of gold jewelry encrusted with diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. Besides these, there were four more chests of old coins (not of gold), and they were carried back to the Palace and state treasuries for counting.


title: Padmanabhaswamy Temple

text: The Bhagavata Purana says that Balarama visited Phalgunam (more commonly known as Thiruvananthapuram), took bath in Panchapsaras (Padmateertham) and made a gift of ten thousand cows to holy men. Though the sannidhyam of Lord Padmanabha has always been present in the holy land of Thiruvananthapuram, and it was a very ancient and renowned pilgrim spot even during the time of Balarama, the present-day temple for the deity came up later. The southwest part of the Chuttambalam was constructed at the holy spot where Lord Balarama is believed to have donated cows to holy men. This portion came to be known as Mahabharatakonam and covered the ground underneath which both Kallara B and Kallara A were situated.


title: Padmanabhaswamy Temple

text: According to a popular legend, many devas and sages devoted to Lord Balarama visited him on the banks of Padmateertham. They requested him that they may be permitted to reside there worshipping the lord. Balarama granted them their wish. It is believed that these devas and sages reside in Kallara B worshipping the Lord. Naga Devathas devoted to the lord also dwell in this Kallara. Kanjirottu Yakshi, whose enchanting and ferocious forms are painted on the south-west part of the main Sanctum, resides in this Kallara worshipping Lord Narasimha. Holy objects like Sreechakram were installed beneath this Kallara to enhance the potency of the Principal Deity. Lord Ugra Narasimha of Thekkedom is said to be the Protector of Kallara B. There is a serpent's image on Kallara B indicating danger to anyone who opens it. A four-day Ashtamangala Devaprasnam conducted in August 2011 declared Kallara B as "forbidden zone".


title: Padmanabhaswamy Temple

text: One of the oldest existing estimates regarding only Vault B, which can be considered to be at least as reliable as any other made since the discovery of the hidden treasure (or assets) of the Temple in 2011, was by the Travancore Royal Family itself in the 1880s (when an older existing inventory and estimate were last updated). According to it, the gold and precious stones contained in Vault B, which is by far the largest and the only vault (of the reported six) that is unopened so far, since the discovery of the treasure, was worth INR 12,000 Crores in the then (1880s') terms. Considering the subsequent inflation of the rupee and the increase in the prices of gold and precious stones since in general, the treasure in the unopened vault B alone would be worth at least US$ One Trillion in July 2011 terms, without the cultural value being factored in. The price of gold in the 1880s, when the inventory and estimate were last updated, was INR 1.8 per gram (The price of gold was about US$18 for an ounce in the 1880s when the dollar was 3.3 to the rupee). In fact, going by these figures, the gold in Vault B could potentially run into many more trillions of dollars even before the cultural or historical value is factored in.


title: Padmanabhaswamy Temple

text: It is highly unlikely that Kallara B was opened after the 1880s. An article by Emily Gilchrist, a visiting Englishwoman in the 1933, recalls in her book 'Travancore: A Guide Book for the Visitor' (Oxford University Press, 1933) about an unsuccessful attempt to open one Kallara in 1908: "About 25 years ago, when the State needed additional money, it was thought expedient to open these chests and use the wealth they contained." "A group of people" got together and attempted to enter the vaults with torches. When they found the vaults "infested with cobras" they "fled for their lives.


title: Padmanabhaswamy Temple

text: In 2011, the antechamber to Kallara B was opened by the Observers appointed by the Supreme Court of India. But the Observers could not open Kallara B. However, Gopal Subramanium in his report submitted to the Supreme Court in April 2014, recommended its opening after conducting another Devaprasnam. The two Pushpanjali Swamiyars are the highest spiritual dignitaries of Padmanabhaswamy Temple. The Pushpanjali Swamiyar of Naduvil Madhom sent letters to the Chairperson of the Administrative Committee and the Executive Officer on 8 February 2016 expressing his strong opposition to the opening of Kallara B. The Pushpanjali Swamiyar of Munchira Madhom led a Ratha Yathra from Kasaragod to Thiruvananthapuram in May 2018 campaigning against opening the sacred Kallara. Azhvanchery Thamprakkal, the supreme spiritual leader of Kerala Brahmins, while addressing a meeting held in connection with the Ratha Yathra, also demanded that faith should not be trampled upon by opening Kallara B.


title: Padmanabhaswamy Temple

text: According to a report by former Comptroller and Auditor General of India Vinod Rai, at least the outer door to Kallara B has been opened a number of times in recent decades - twice in 1991 and five times in 2002. Once Vinod Rai's report was out, Princess Aswathi Thirunal Gowri Lakshmi Bayi clarified that Mr Rai was referring to the antechamber to Kallara B, which was opened even in 2011 by the Supreme Court-appointed observers.


title: Padmanabhaswamy Temple

text: The Kerala High Court ruled in 2011 that the state government should take over the control of the temple and its assets, but the Travancore royal family appealed to the Supreme Court. An independent report was commissioned, and was completed in November 2012, finding no evidence that the royal family were expropriating the treasures.


title: Padmanabhaswamy Temple

text: As of April 2016, vaults B, G, and H along with their several ante-chambers were yet to be opened; while inventorying of the items in vaults C, D, E, and F were completed (in August 2012) and formal inventorying of vault A had commenced. Several hundred pots and other items made of gold, that are used for daily rituals or intermittently for ceremonies in the Temple, were not inventoried as the Temple-priests expressed strong objections. Over 1.02 lakh "articles" had been retrieved from Vault A and its ante-chambers, until that point, though only a small part of them had been inventoried then. An "article" could be either an individual item, or collections of several items, examples of the latter being a cache of 1.95 lakh 'Rassappanams' (Gold coins) weighing 800 kg and sets of Navaratnas (collections of nine different kinds of diamonds). There are over 60,000 fully precious stones set as parts of larger pieces of gold jewellery among those items inventoried as of March 2013. The results of the inventory are not to be released until the completion of the whole process by order of the Supreme Court of India.


title: Padmanabhaswamy Temple

text: In April 2014, Amicus Curiae advocate Gopal Subramaniam filed a 577-page report to the Supreme court of India alleging malpractices in the administration of the temple. According to him, the authorities failed to perform their ethical duties by opening many bank accounts, trusts and also not filing Income Tax returns for the past ten years. He alleged that Vault B was opened despite a previous ruling of the Supreme court prohibiting the same.


title: Padmanabhaswamy Temple

text: The report states – "The large amount of gold and silver, the discovery of which was a shock to the Amicus Curiae, is a singular instance of mismanagement. The presence of a gold plating machine is also yet another unexplained circumstance. This discovery raises a doubt of the organized extraction by persons belonging to the highest echelons. There appears to be resistance on the part of the entire State apparatus in effectively addressing the said issues. The lack of adequate investigation by the police is a telling sign that although Thiruvananthapuram is a city in the State of Kerala, parallelism based on monarchic rule appears to predominate the social psyche." The Supreme court bench comprising justice R. M. Lodha and justice A. K. Patnaik ordered a change in administration by forming a 5-member committee and appointing Vinod Rai as auditor. The committee will include Thiruvananthapuram District judge K. P. Indira, Thantri and Nambi of the temple and two members to be decided in consultation with the Government of Kerala. Additionally, IAS officer and former administrator of the temple, K. N. Satish was appointed as executive officer. The Government of Kerala agreed to comply with the Supreme court order. Moolam Thirunal Rama Varma remains the trustee of the temple and still does the ritual duties as the titular Maharaja of Travancore, but has no responsibility regarding the temple management after the interim ruling by the Supreme Court The report also found the existence of two more vaults that were never even made mention of or hitherto spoken about.


title: Padmanabhaswamy Temple

text: The report named them Vault 'G' and Vault 'H'. Like Vault 'B' and all its antechambers, both these vaults and their antechambers were yet to be opened as of May 2014. The report also mentions that Mr. Subramanian found several large trunks filled with artefacts made of precious metals and precious stones outside of the eight vaults and their antechambers.


title: Padmanabhaswamy Temple

text: The CBI and the Intelligence Bureau have red-flagged the appointment of Gopal Subramaniam as a Judge in the Supreme Court. The IB cites Mr Subramaniam's report on Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple as one of the instances where he relied heavily on his spiritual instincts rather than rational logic and hard facts. In his second report on Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple, Mr Subramaniam himself reveals,"It was his morning ritual of [shutting] his mind and seeking guidance, which resulted in discoveries in this direction."


title: Padmanabhaswamy Temple

text: The Amicus Curiae has also been accused of conducting poojas in the Temple in violation of its customs. He performed poojas at the Thevarappura in the Temple and in front of the Vedavyasa Shrine. Despite opposition from the Royal Family and the Tantries of the Temple, he pulled out a stone Yantra from the nearby Marthandan Madhom Palace and did pooja on it for several days. The Tantries explained that the Yantram had no connection with the Padmanabhaswami Temple and that it was for the protection of the Palace. But the Amicus Curiae insisted on having it installed in the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Temple. Due to severe opposition from the Tantries the Yantram remains where it was. Every morning, Lord Padmanabha is to be awakened only by blowing the conch shell and chanting the Sripada Sooktham. But the Amicus Curiae introduced the daily rendering of Venkatesa Suprabhatam to awaken the Lord. The Supreme Court requested the Tantri to take the final decision on whether the Suprabhatam could be sung. Following that, the Senior Tantri Nedumpilli Tharananalloor Parameswaran Namboothiripad directed the Temple authorities to stop the chanting of Suprabhatam forthwith, as it was causing 'Anya Mantra Yajana Dosham' (affliction due to worshipping the Deity with incompatible mantras) to the Presiding Deity and the Temple. As atonement for this dosham, the Tantri wants Vedic scholars to chant 12 'muras' each of Rig Veda and Yajur Veda. In his first report to the Supreme Court, the Amicus Curiae directed the Tantries to examine whether a Sri Yantra can be installed in the Sanctum Sanctorum, in front of the utsava moorthi.


title: Padmanabhaswamy Temple

text: On 13 July 2020, overturning the January 2011 judgment of the Kerala high court, the Supreme Court of India ruled that the Padmanabhaswamy Temple administration and control would be done by the erstwhile Travancore royal family.


title: Edwardian era

text: The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victorian era. Her son and successor, Edward VII, was already the leader of a fashionable elite that set a style influenced by the art and fashions of continental Europe. Samuel Hynes described the Edwardian era as a "leisurely time when women wore picture hats and did not vote, when the rich were not ashamed to live conspicuously, and the sun really never set on the British flag."


title: Edwardian era

text: The Liberals returned to power in 1906 and made significant reforms. Below the upper class, the era was marked by significant shifts in politics among sections of society that had largely been excluded from power, such as labourers, servants, and the industrial working class. Women started to play more of a role in politics.


title: Edwardian era

text: The Edwardian era was the last period of British history to be named after the reigning monarch. The subsequent reigns of George V and George VI are not commonly termed "Georgian era", this name being reserved for the time of the 18th-century kings of that name. Similarly, "Elizabethan era" refers solely to the 16th-century queen Elizabeth I and was not extended to the reign of Elizabeth II.


title: Edwardian era

text: The Edwardian period is sometimes portrayed as a romantic golden age of long summer afternoons and garden parties, basking in a sun that never set on the British Empire. This perception was created in the 1920s and later by those who remembered the Edwardian age with nostalgia, looking back to their childhoods across the abyss of the Great War. The Edwardian age was also seen as a mediocre period of pleasure between the great achievements of the preceding Victorian age and the catastrophe of the following war.


title: Edwardian era

text: Recent assessments emphasise the great differences between the wealthy and the poor during this period and describe the age as heralding great changes in political and social life. Historian Lawrence James has argued that the leaders felt increasingly threatened by rival powers such as Germany, Russia, and the United States. Nevertheless, the sudden arrival of World War I in the summer of 1914 was largely unexpected, except by the Royal Navy, because it had been prepared and ready for war.


title: Edwardian era

text: There was a growing political awareness among the working class, leading to a rise in trade unions, the Labour movement and demands for better working conditions. The aristocracy remained in control of top government offices.


title: Edwardian era

text: The Conservatives – at the time called "Unionists" – were the dominant political party from the 1890s until 1906. The party had many strengths, appealing to voters supportive of imperialism, tariffs, the Church of England, a powerful Royal Navy, and traditional hierarchical society. There was a powerful leadership base in the landed aristocracy and landed gentry in rural England, plus strong support from the Church of England and military interests. Historians have used election returns to demonstrate that Conservatives did surprisingly well in working-class districts. They had an appeal as well to the better-off element of traditional working-class Britons in the larger cities.


title: Edwardian era

text: In rural areas, the national headquarters made highly effective use of paid travelling lecturers, with pamphlets, posters, and especially lantern slides, who were able to communicate effectively with rural voters – particularly the newly enfranchised agricultural workers. In the first years of the twentieth century, the Conservative government, with Arthur Balfour as Prime Minister, had numerous successes in foreign policy, defence, and education, as well as solutions for the issues of alcohol licensing and land ownership for the tenant farmers of Ireland.


title: Edwardian era

text: Nevertheless, the weaknesses were accumulating, and proved so overwhelming in 1906 that the party did not return to complete power until 1922. The Conservative Party was losing its drive and enthusiasm, especially after the retirement of the charismatic Joseph Chamberlain. There was a bitter split on "tariff reform" (that is, imposing tariffs or taxes on all imports), that drove many of the free traders over to the Liberal camp. Tariff reform was a losing issue that the Conservative leadership inexplicably clung to.


title: Edwardian era

text: Conservative support weakened among the top tier of the working-class and lower middle-class, and there was dissatisfaction among intellectuals. The 1906 general election was a landslide victory for the Liberal Party, which saw its total vote share increase by 25%, while the Conservative total vote held steady.


title: Edwardian era

text: The Labour Party was emerging from the rapidly growing trade union movement after 1890. In 1903 it entered the Gladstone–MacDonald pact with the Liberals, allowing for cross-party support in elections, and the emergence of a small Labour contingent in Parliament. It was a temporary arrangement until the 1920s, when the Labour Party was strong enough to act on its own, and the Liberals were in an irreversible decline. Subtle social changes in the working-class were producing a younger generation that wanted to act independently.


title: Edwardian era

text: Michael Childs argues that the younger generation had reason to prefer Labour over Liberal political styles. Social factors included secularised elementary education (with a disappearing role for Dissenting schools that inculcated Liberal viewpoints); the "New Unionism" after 1890 brought unskilled workers into a movement previously dominated by the skilled workers; and new leisure activities, especially the music hall and sports, involved youth while repelling the older generation of Liberal voters.


title: Edwardian era

text: The Liberal Party lacked a unified ideological base in 1906. It contained numerous contradictory and hostile factions, such as imperialists and supporters of the Boers; near-socialists and laissez-faire classical liberals; suffragettes and opponents of women's suffrage; antiwar elements and supporters of the military alliance with France. Nonconformist Dissenters – Protestants outside the Anglican fold – were a powerful element, dedicated to opposing the established church in the fields of education and taxation. However, the Dissenters were losing support and played a lesser and lesser role in party affairs after 1900.


title: Edwardian era

text: The party also included Roman Catholics, including the notable Catholic intellectual Hilaire Belloc, who sat as a Liberal MP between 1906 and 1910. They included secularists from the labour movement. The middle-class business, professional and intellectual communities were generally strongholds, although some old aristocratic families played important roles as well. The working-class element was moving rapidly toward the newly emerging Labour Party. One unifying element was widespread agreement on the use of politics and Parliament as a means to upgrade and improve society and to reform politics. In the House of Lords, the Liberals lost most of their members, who in the 1890s "became Conservative in all but name." The government could force the unwilling king to create new Liberal peers, and that threat did prove decisive in the battle for dominance of Commons over Lords in 1911.


title: Edwardian era

text: The government entered the Second Boer War with great confidence, little expecting that the two small rural Boer republics in southern Africa with a combined White population smaller than that of London would hold off the concentrated power of the British Empire for two and half years, and take 400,000 Imperial troops to secure victory. The war split the Liberal Party into anti- and pro-war factions. Great orators, such as Liberal David Lloyd George, who spoke against the war, became increasingly influential. Nevertheless, Liberal Unionist Joseph Chamberlain, who was largely in charge of the war, maintained his hold on power.


title: Edwardian era

text: When General Kitchener took command in 1900, he initiated a scorched earth policy in order to foil Boer guerrilla tactics. Captured Boer combatants were transported overseas to other British possessions as prisoners of war. However he relocated non-combatant Boers—mostly women and children—into heavily guarded internment camps. The internment camps were overcrowded with bad sanitation and meagre food rations. Contagious diseases such as measles, typhoid and dysentery were endemic.


title: Edwardian era

text: Many of the internees died. Emily Hobhouse visited the camps and brought the conditions to the attention of the British public. Public outcry resulted in the Fawcett Commission which corroborated Hobhouse's report and eventually led to improved conditions. The Boers surrendered and the Boer Republics were annexed by the British Empire. Jan Smuts—a leading Boer general—became a senior official of the new government and even became a top British official in the World War.


title: Edwardian era

text: In 1901, the six British self-governing colonies of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and Western Australia united to form the Commonwealth of Australia, with almost complete control of its internal affairs, but with foreign policy and defence handled by London. Edmund Barton was the first prime minister.