In my prior post, I concluded with the assertion that Hindu temples hold more gold than the Reserve Bank of India and that further, my research shows Hindu women probably have more gold than the Hindu temples and Reserve Bank of India put together!Now let’s dig deeper and look at my research from ancient times:

1.   We had the Kohinoor diamond which is now in the jewellery collection of Queen Elizabeth.

2.   We had Peacock throne and we don’t where it is now. My research shows that it is in Iran.

3.   We had Akshaya Pathram of Draupadi (of Mahabharatha).This is a vessel that feeds any number of people with never ending food supply. Where is it? I am doing more research on this Holy Grail. First it was taken to the Christian lands and then it disappeared.

4.   We had Amutha Surabhi the vessel of eternal supply (Ref.: Manimekalai, Tamil Literature) and we do not know where it has gone.

Kovalan the son of a great merchant came to Madurai to sell his wife Kannaki’s anklet which is full of gem stones. But he was caught by an evil goldsmith as thief and executed by the great Pandya King Nedunchezian. Kannaki, his wife ,entered the Pandyan assembly and threw the anklet at his foot steps. The moment the king came to know that the anklets did not contain the pearls from the Gulf of Mannar, but gems from other territories he died of heart attack. Shocked by the injustice done to an innocent human being the queen of Pandya king also had a massive heart attack and died on the spot. Kovalan’s enraged wife Kannaki burnt down Madurai by throwing one of her breasts on the palace. But she prayed to the God of Fire (Agni deva) not to harm the holy cows, the women and the Brahmins – thus goes the great moving Tamil epic Silappathikaram. The point I want to make is to look at the wealth of ancient Madurai. (Madurai is the second largest city in Tamil Nadu, India).

In the next part we will look beyond the historical and mythological references to India’s wealth to the real world.