A few years ago, some of the vaults of Padmanabha Swamy Temple in Thiruvandhapuram was opened as per the order of the Supreme court. The vaults had tons and tons of Gold Coins, Crowns embedded with precious stones, Gold Jewels with embedded diamonds, Statues of Gold , Diamonds and various other precious stones were found. There were many discussions on who should be allowed to manage the temple and its treasure.
But to me the important question was “how did this one temple amass such huge fortunes?”
I found my answer when I visited the temple and the museum in the Kudramalika Palace nearby. Travancore Kings considered their kingdom as God’s own country and themselves as only representatives appointed to administer the province. The Deeply religious kings visited the Padmanabhaswamy temple every year on his birthday and contributed to the temple treasury Gold equivalent to their weight.
This practice called Thulabaram is very popular all throughout Kerala even today. Although people give different things like coconuts pulses etc and not Gold unlike the Kings.
It is this practice that had been followed across generation of Travancore Royal Family that was one of the chief reasons of this huge treasure estimated to be a trillion dollars worth. This was also the reason probably supreme court has vested the rights of temple administration back to the unbroken dynasty of the Travancore Royal Family.
The compounding can work as well for you as it had worked for Lord Padmanabha. If you cannot contribute Gold equivalent to your weight every year, may be you can still start an SIP every month. May be you don’t have the few hundred years that Lord Padmanabha and the Travancore Raja Samsthanam had, but neither are you trying to build a vault with tons and tons of Gold. All that we hope to have is a peaceful retirement life without having to worry about keeping up with ever rising inflation and a few decades of your life should be sufficient to do the same.
So how are going to make time and money work for you?
Compounding is indeed a seemingly boring, but a surprisingly effective way to build wealth.
Yeah. Predictable and boring yet utterly effective.
This Padmanabhaswamy temple’s wealth story is a great analogy to explain the power of compounding. In my view, patience and discipline are the essential two virtues that will help compound the investment long-term. Thanks, Priya, for sharing your thoughts.
True. Patience and discipline is indeed the key to prosperity.