Kerala: Vault C of temple to be opened on Monday

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Supreme Court-appointed expert committee on Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple on Friday decided to open vault C of the temple on Monday. Documentation of the articles in vault C will be carried out in the presence of experts from 11 am to 5 pm.The committee headed by conservationist M V Nair decided to carry on with the documentation of the articles from vaults E and F parallel to that of vault C.“The documentation process of articles from  vault E continued on Friday. On Monday, we will open vault C as permitted by the Supreme Court. Most of the articles that were added to the inventory from vaults E and F are being used for pooja purposes of the temple,” Nair said.About 10 articles, including gold plates and  utensils, were documented on Friday. Precious stones embedded articles from vaults E and F will be documented in the next week. The decision comes in the backdrop of the Supreme Court giving its nod on Thursday for the opening of vaults C and D.The expert committee had approached the Supreme Court seeking permission to open the vaults after these were sealed by the Thiruvananthapuram Principal Sub-Court.The Supreme Court ruled that the presence of the advocates commission, appointed by the sub-court, was not necessary during the inventory process of vault C.It ruled that the commission shall work under the expert committee. The documentation process began on Monday with the inventory of vaults E and F. Seven articles were documented on the first day and 10 on the second day.   In all, there are six vaults in the temple. Five have been opened since July last when the Supreme Court-appointed committee found treasure from vault A which had remained unopened for more than 150 years.Vault B will only be opened after completing the inventory of items from other vaults. For this, the expert panel has to get permission from the Supreme Court.Digital Archiving of Temple Antiques (DATA) has been installed to ensure that there is no manual intervention.The main aim of creating computerised inventory is to store information about every item in the temple treasure, which could be retrieved easily in an efficient manner.The DATA will also help to categorise the temple treasure into three as directed by the Supreme Court.