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$22 Billion In Gold, Diamonds, Jewels Found In Indian Temple

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Re: $22 Billion In Gold, Diamonds, Jewels Found In Indian Temple

#31

Post by abhaga »

harichinnan wrote: post #14
hacjjjjjjjj wrote: post #6

India had thousands of such temples for example, Somanatha etc. from which Arabs, Mughals and the crazy British took from it. When British came to India, india was the richest country and when they left India, India was the poorest country. Whites people have bad culture.

I'm an Indian and a hindu. I've been to that temple. It's really sad to think that there would thousands of people around that temple who would go hungry as we speak and this temple has wealth that will pretty much stay locked up for the rest of humanity. It'll never get invested. No next google would come from thiruvanandapuram because of this. People would go on their lives living in terrible houses, driving terrib…

I doubt it is the lack of money which is the primary cause of the state of our society. No amount of money can bring out a society from the corruption & mismanagement. By all means, let us use part of the treasure for public good (I say part since I assume the historical/antique value for majority of it). But unless we manage to fix our system, we will be back to broken roads and shabby houses very soon.

Re: $22 Billion In Gold, Diamonds, Jewels Found In Indian Temple

#32

Post by tejaswiy »

demallien wrote: post #23
hacjjjjjjjj wrote: post #6

India had thousands of such temples for example, Somanatha etc. from which Arabs, Mughals and the crazy British took from it. When British came to India, india was the richest country and when they left India, India was the poorest country. Whites people have bad culture.

Putting aside your extremely dubious claim that India was the richest country before the arrival of the British, I still fail to see why you think "White culture" is so terrible. Want to know how a small country like England managed to subjugate a huge country like India? Instead of stealing riches from it's people, to store it in a temple, leaving the people to live on uneducated poverty, the English instead were in…

Both the comments are equally naive I believe. There is no way you can logically justify English colonialism was on the whole a beneficial experience for India and you'd have to come up with a much better explanation to justify that. You need to look only as far as the middle ages to see new religions being created and Indian trade / influence extending all over south-east asia. (Seriously, even now, I walk into a Thai restaurant today and I'm amazed how similar the deities are)

While I totally disagree with the term "superior" culture (honestly, Beethoven, Bach, Da Vinci, Roman empire? No way.), I'd also urge you to look up India's art, music and general lifestyle before the British invasion, and it's not as if we were tribals living off of hunting and gathering either.

And as to your second comment about "stealing riches from its people", it's called taxing, and every kingdom levies taxes and stores them _somewhere_. In this case it happened to be a temple. If anything, it speaks to the prosperity of a kingdom that they could afford to even spend so much on art.

Re: $22 Billion In Gold, Diamonds, Jewels Found In Indian Temple

#33

Post by clobber »

Shenglong wrote: post #22
zeteo wrote: post #5

>$22 billion [...] is likely a conservative estimate [...] the panel is simple counting and weighing the valuables. "Their value, including antique value, is not being assessed" A quick back of the envelope calculation indicates $22 billion corresponding to 450 metric tons of gold. This is an immense quantity: India's current gold reserve is about 615 tons [1], and there were recent years when it dropped under 400. I…

Keep in mind that a 3 carat red diamond is worth about $20,000,000... as an example I'm not sure what the geology is around there, or what India's historical gem cutting practices were... but I wouldn't say this is impossible. Maybe... haha, this sixth door is the key to the world ending in 2012 :P

Really? Source? Diamonds are a controlled artificial market and aren't worth squat. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2524/is-a-diamonds-...

Re: $22 Billion In Gold, Diamonds, Jewels Found In Indian Temple

#36

Post by blutonium »

andrewflnr wrote: post #25

So these vaults haven't been opened in over a century, and the only reason they're being opened now is because someone is concerned with how a trust fund is managing them? Excuse me, managing how? I guess that's the question, but it still makes me laugh.

The Wiki article uses "security" instead of "management". If I were a judge and someone told me $22B in treasure wasn't behind miles of lasers, I might take some judicial liberties too.

Re: $22 Billion In Gold, Diamonds, Jewels Found In Indian Temple

#37

Post by mattiask »

Am I the only one freaked out by this passage? Wasn't this like the opening scene from the "The Mumy"?

"The panel managed to open the sixth vault but found an iron wall inside it, reports the BBC. The sixth vault has a snake on the front door and quoting an unnamed royal family source, it reports that opening it "might be a bad omen." The Guardian reports that the sixth vault has "special locks" but experts should be able to examine them and open it by Friday."

Re: $22 Billion In Gold, Diamonds, Jewels Found In Indian Temple

#38

Post by demallien »

tejaswiy wrote: post #32
demallien wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting aside your extremely dubious claim that India was the richest country before the arrival of the British, I still fail to see why you think "White culture" is so terrible. Want to know how a small country like England managed to subjugate a huge country like India? Instead of stealing riches from it's people, to store it in a temple, leaving the people to live on uneducated poverty, the English instead were in…

Both the comments are equally naive I believe. There is no way you can logically justify English colonialism was on the whole a beneficial experience for India and you'd have to come up with a much better explanation to justify that. You need to look only as far as the middle ages to see new religions being created and Indian trade / influence extending all over south-east asia. (Seriously, even now, I walk into a Th…

You haven't understood my post at all. 1) I do not think that the British colonising India was a good thing. Indeed I even went to the trouble of using the negative word 'subjugate', instead of the neutral word 'colonise' to get the point across. 2) I certainly don't think it was a good thing for India, and I never said anything at all to suggest that I did think it was a good thing. 3) I don't have a problem with taxes. I have a problem with rich people taxing poor people and then hoarding the money. My entire post was about this. I didn't criticise the British for taxing their people, because those taxes were then re-invested to the benefit of the people. India chose not to do that, and I would argue that this is the sine qua non of a weak culture.

Re: $22 Billion In Gold, Diamonds, Jewels Found In Indian Temple

#39

Post by quasi »

harichinnan wrote: post #14
hacjjjjjjjj wrote: post #6

India had thousands of such temples for example, Somanatha etc. from which Arabs, Mughals and the crazy British took from it. When British came to India, india was the richest country and when they left India, India was the poorest country. Whites people have bad culture.

I'm an Indian and a hindu. I've been to that temple. It's really sad to think that there would thousands of people around that temple who would go hungry as we speak and this temple has wealth that will pretty much stay locked up for the rest of humanity. It'll never get invested. No next google would come from thiruvanandapuram because of this. People would go on their lives living in terrible houses, driving terrib…

It's about feeding a man vs. teaching him to find his food. All the collected wealth will vanish if we use it to feed people. People/Communities/Governments have to learn to build wealth and not live off it. Some part of this can go into making the land a better place but I think the most important use of it is to make the people proud and want to live better and build more wealth (hence standard of living). A large part of this treasure should be proudly displayed in a fantastic Museum.
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