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The Almighty As Pre-Emption

Dread of the Lord’s wrath deterred the loot of his wealth

I
t has been an age-old tactic to use fear to protect the treasure of temples. “The fear of God was an element used so that nobody would dare appropriate the wealth of the temple. This was unbroken for thousands of years and is perhaps the reason why the money was never swindled in the case of this temple,” noted historian M.G.S. Narayanan contends. Myths like the serpent guarding a vault are also universal, he adds. “This is a usual ploy. When the pyramids were being opened in Egypt, the western investigators encountered similar legends.”

Records of the temple’s treasure, or matilakam, have always existed. These records, written on palm leaves, have all been opened and Diwan Peshkar Ulloor S. Parameswara Iyer, the special officer to the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple, had selected 271 from the thousands of records and published them as the Pradhanapetta Matilakam Rekhakal (important Matilakam records) in 1941. Every donation made by merchants, officials, rajas and the reason for the donation, like the prayaschitta (act of atonement), was recorded. “One good thing the Travancore the from the general administration. The money from taxes never went into the temple and vice versa,” says Narayanan.

The reason the treasure still exists is because invaders never ventured this far south. Though there were a few incursions from the Chola kings, the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple stayed untouched. Haider Ali and his son Tipu Sultan never invaded Travancore, their armies only breaching north Kerala up to Thiruvanchikulam.

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