As Hari Kumar crept through the darkness to the entrance of the first underground chamber he could feel his heart beating faster and faster.
“I was quite apprehensive at first and scared because I didn’t know what was in store for us,” Mr Kumar, an executive officer at the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Hindu temple in Kerala, said.
“Opening the vault was not difficult but we had a tough time breaking down the door. And when I first saw the treasure I was stunned. The first sentence that came out of my mouth was, ‘Oh my God, this is unbelievable!’ ”
Investigators at the temple are preparing to prise open a final vault after unearthing sacks of diamonds, gold coins and other treasures in another secret chamber.
Officials said that the hoard could be worth as much as $20 billion (£12.4 billion). If true, that would be more than the annual Indian education budget.
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The descendants of the royal family, who gave most of their wealth to the temple for safekeeping in 1750, warned of the danger of opening the final vault, which they said would bring misfortune. A decision whether to break the seal will be made on Friday.
The discovery at the temple in Kerala’s ancient capital of Trivandrum has created a debate in India — a country where 450 million people live in absolute poverty — over what should be done with the treasure, much of which has remained undisturbed for nearly 150 years.
Vipin Nair, a Supreme Court lawyer who led a campaign to open the vaults to ensure greater transparency in the way that the temple was being managed, said that the Indian Government was discussing whether to pass a law that would allow it to take control of the assets that have been found.
“This is simply unprecedented,” he said. “Nothing of this enormity [sic] has been discovered in the history of independent India so it is being discussed at the highest levels.”
Under Indian law the assets found at the temple, one of the holiest shrines to the Hindu god Vishnu in southern India, remain its property and cannot be removed. However, the scale of the discovery has raised questions about the ability of the temple’s management to ensure the security of the items now that their value is known around the world. “This is a very conservatively run temple,” Mr Nair said. “Until a few days ago the security around it consisted of nothing more than a night watchman with a stick.”
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Indian intellectuals, including a former Supreme Court judge, Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer, have suggested that the wealth should be used for the public good. Among the items that have been excavated are close to 1,000kg of gold coins, including many from the Napoleonic era, one tonne of gold trinkets and jewellery and a sack of diamonds thought to be from Burma or Sri Lanka. A 3½ft idol of Vishnu studded with emeralds, rubies, diamonds and gold chains has also been found.
“This was a very rich temple and its devotees have always donated gold,” said A. G. Krishna Menon, of the Indian National Trust for Artistic and Cultural Heritage. “It has been very actively worshipped for probably 700 or 800 years so really it’s no surprise that they have made this discovery.”
Much of the treasure is thought to have originally belonged to the maharajahs of Travancore, the former rulers of the princely state in Kerala until India won independence from Britain in 1947. In 1750 the royal family had declared that they were servants of Lord Vishnu.