By David Lew A trip to India will be incomplete without visiting the famous and venerable temples across country. Millions of devotees every year travel to and worship in dozens of sprawling Hindu temples that dot the Indian landscape, from south to north, east to west.
We all go to temples, churches and mosques to pray. We give donations to these holy places of worship to help maintain them and help religious organizations that manage these places to run orphanages, schools, educational institutions, hospitals etc. It is for a noble cause, and everyone gives donations on highly personal grounds, according to his ability.
Well, India’s temples are not just places to pray alone. Gods in these temples are in love with gold! Temples in India own more gold than the country’s central bank—the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)—that recently bought 200 tonnes of gold from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to boost its foreign exchange reserves. There is no estimate of how much gold that Indian temples possess, but RBI officials say it is much, much bigger than the central bank gold holdings of nearly 557 tonnes.
Recently, I read that Sajjan Jindal, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of JSW Steel, a billionaire Indian industrialist and steel magnate, travelled to the Hindu Guruvayur Temple in the southern Indian state of Kerala and offered the temple authorities an entrance door to the sanctum sanctorum of the temple—all made of gold! It is not just Jindal, a rich industrialist, who is offering gold to the deities across Indian temples. From rich to the poor, people donate gold coins, gold bars, gold jewellery and ornaments to gods in the Indian temples.
I have culled out some interesting data on the gold offerings and the yellow metal reserves in Indian temples from Commodity Online archives. Have a nice reading!
The credit for a religious place to holding the largest quantity of gold in the world belongs to the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) that maintains twelve temples and shrines in the southern India state of Andhra Pradesh. The temples at Tirupati receive several hundred kilograms of gold as donations from devotees every month. It is said that the Tirupati temple has the largest gold holding that any religious place of worship in the world possesses.
The Tirupati temple has a separate department to handle gold coins and articles received as donations. The department’s employees check if all that glitters is indeed gold. Coins are separated from currencies, gold from all else, before being deposited in banks. The assortment of golden items that the temple receives as donations include: gold coins, silver coins, gold ornaments, silver ornaments, golden handcuffs. Recently the temple even received a gold Leica camera, which is today being used by the official photographer of the temple.
Two years back, a devotee of Hindu Lord Venkateswara for whom the Tirupati temple is dedicated donated gold puja items worth Rs 1.5 crore. Balbir Singh Uppal, an industrialist donated over seven pieces of puja items made of gold to the temple. The donation was believed to be made in fulfillment of a vow made earlier. The seven-piece ensemble comprised gold sankanidhi, gold padmanidhi, gold eka harathi, dhoopa harathi, gold nakshatra harathi, gold sankham, and gold nakshatra harati. The Tirupati temple is also giving gold to poor families in order to stop them converting to other religions. It gives out one gram of gold to each family which lives over a lakh (100,000 rupees) below the poverty line.
On the Tirumala temple again. Last year, the Tirupati temple management announced the commencement of gold covering work of sanctum sanctorum of Sri Venkateswara temple. The temple administration has already received 60 kg of gold from devotees for the work taken up under the Ananda Nilayam Anantha Swarnamayam scheme. In the first phase of Ananda Nilayam Anantha Swarnamayam scheme, 200 kg of gold and 600 kg of copper will be used to cover the sanctum sanctorum.
The Siddhivinayak Temple in the western Indian state of Maharashtra temple plans to sell gold ornaments donated by devotees at auction in order to pay for a medical centre. The proceeds of the auction by will be spent on a diagnostic centre, after plans for the project were approved by the state government.
One of the biggest Hindu shrines in southern India, the Sri Puram Golden Temple a grand golden temple was built by a spiritual organization in Tamil Nadu at an approximate cost of US$160 million two years back. The temple, covering 55,000 sq ft area, has intricate carvings and sculptures in gold. Except the walking path, the entire structure has been covered with gold and copper. Some 400 goldsmiths and coppersmiths completed the architectural marvel in gold in six years. More than one and one-half ton of pure gold full of glitter and gleam has been used to build the temple which is covered fully with gold.
The Harmandir Sahib (or Hari Mandir) in Amritsar in northern India’s Punjab state, is the holiest shrine in Sikhism. Known as the as famous Golden Temple—where once Indian army launched a military strike to flush terrorists from the temple—is a major pilgrimage destination for Sikhs from all over the world, as well as an increasingly popular tourist attraction. When the temple was re-built in rebuilt in the early 19th century, 100 kilograms of gold were applied to the inverted lotus-shaped dome and decorative marble was added! Thus the temple’s name of Golden Temple.
Temples in India are the biggest holders of gold as far as religious places of worship are concerned in the world. Several commercial banks in India are wooing temples to handle their gold assets. The State Bank of India (SBI) has launched a special gold investment scheme targeted only to those affluent and high net worth investors, temples and trusts for whom gold is just another asset class. The scheme had garnered 400 kgs of gold alone from Guruvayur temple in the state of Kerala.
Gods are, indeed, in love with gold in India, the largest marketplace for gold along with China. As gold prices continue to soar to record highs, India's temples are becoming richer. Gods from above must be watching their rich, golden abodes!
David Lew is a bullion commentator with Commodity Online. You can contact him at info@commodityonline.com
