Audit of valuables in Jagannath temple to start after govt nod: Inventory committee head
The ‘Ratna Bhandar’ is arguably the most precious property of the temple that contains several priceless pieces of jewellery belonging to the shrine, including diamond, gold and silver
Amid conflicting reports on the opening of ‘Ratna Bhandar’, the holy treasury of the Jagannath temple in Puri which contain valuables of the three deities, retired Supreme Court judge Arijit Pasayat, who heads the committee to supervise the inventory process, said the audit of the vault will begin the day when the government decides to open it.
Ending all speculations, Pasayat, who was appointed in February this year as the head of the 12-member committee to oversee the long-pending process, told reporters that the ‘Ratna Bhandar’ may not be opened on July 8 due to the Rath Yatra.
“Our work will start the day the government decides to open the Ratna Bhandar,” Pasayat said upon arrival in Bhubaneswar. “We will attend the supervising committee meeting on Friday, during which the process and modalities of the audit will be discussed and finalised. It will be implemented only after the treasury opens. It is highly unlikely that the Ratna Bhandar will open on July 8 due to Rath Yatra.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Odisha law minister Prithviraj Harichandan said the decision regarding the opening of the Ratna Bhandar has already been taken at the government level and the exact date will be announced soon.
“High-level discussions on the opening of the Ratna Bhandar have already been done. We are going to inform the people of Odisha about the detailed modalities regarding the process of the opening of Ratna Bhandar soon,” Harichandan said.
Last month, the superintendent of the Archaeological Survey of India’s Puri circle, Dibishad Gadnaik, had said that the inspection of the Ratna Bhandar will be done on either July 8 or a day later in the presence of the members of core committee and technical committee. The ASI official said the body would see the structural condition of the chamber as the laser scanning done last year revealed cracks in the outer wall and joints, with the possibility of rainwater seeping through it.
The Ratna Bhandar, located near the sanctum sanctorum of the temple, is arguably the most precious property of the temple that contains several priceless pieces of jewellery belonging to the shrine, including diamond, gold and silver.
Standing at a height of 11.78 metres and having a width of 8.79 metres x 6.74 metres, the Ratna Bhandar has two chambers — Bahara Bhandar (outer chamber) and Bhitara Bhandar (inner chamber) that contain the gold and silver jewels offered to Lord Jagannath.
During the last inventory of the Ratna Bhandar between May 13 and July 23 in 1978, 454 gold articles with a net weight of 128.380 kg and 293 silver articles weighing 221.530 kg were found in both the chambers of the treasury. While the inner treasury had 367 gold items weighing 43.640 kg and 231 silver items weighing 148.780 kg, the outer treasury had gold items of 84.74 kg and silver items of 73.64 kg.
Though the outer chamber is opened for various rituals of deities and the valuables stored there are used during Suna Besha of Lord Jagannath, the inner chamber has not been opened since 1978. The Jagannath Temple Act states that there has to be an audit of all valuables kept in the inner chamber of the Ratna Bhandar every three years.
The opening of Ratna Bhandar had become a major poll plank during the recent assembly elections, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) highlighting the ‘disappearance’ of the treasury key in 2018. From PM Modi to Amit Shah, all BJP leaders raised the slogan of ‘Odia Asmita’ (Odia pride) to oust the Biju Janata Dal government led by Naveen Patnaik. The BJP had in its elections manifesto promised an audit and inventorisation of the treasury if voted to power.
