13 Temples Around India That Have More Money Than Our Billionaires

Temples are a beacon of hope for devotees who visit them. With each prayer comes an offering that makes the god 'rich', and the temple richer than ever. In this 'give and take', the deities rake in more moolah than even some billionaires do. Don't believe us? Take a look at these numbers.

1. Padmanabhaswamy Temple, Kerala

Image Credit: huffingtonpost.in

Wealth: Rs. 1 lakh crore

Located in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, valuables worth Rs. 1 lakh crore were recently discovered from the secret cellars of this temple. Sacks full of gold chains, coins, sheaf, and crowns were unearthed from the treasure. The temple is one of the 108 Divya Desams (holy abodes of Vishnu) and is known to be the richest Hindu temple in the world.

2. Tirupati Balaji, Andhra Pradesh

Image Credit: viresattached.com

Wealth: Rs. 900 crore

Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD), the trust that manages the temple money, has recorded a whopping Rs. 900 crore as hundi collections last year. The temple has 14,000 permanent employees and has pension funds of Rs 115 crore. Apart from all this, the temple has gold reserves and 52 tonnes of golden ornaments which they have deposited with the Indian Overseas Bank and the State Bank of India. 

3. Shirdi Sai Baba, Nashik

Image Credit: mybusblog

Wealth: Rs 540 crore

Shirdi Sai Baba has a following of disciples, irrespective of their caste, creed and religion. The donation box of the deity is never empty and disciples are known to anonymously put diamonds and gold into the donation box.

4. Vaishno Devi Temple, Jammu

Image Credit: jagran

Wealth: Over 500 crore

The temple sees at least 10 million pilgrims every year, which makes it the second biggest crowd-puller after the Tirupati temple. With an annual income of 500 crore, the temple also stores 1.2 tonnes of gold.

5. Siddhi Vinayak Temple, Mumbai

Image Credit:templefolks

Wealth: Rs 125 crore

Mumbai’s richest temple has a dome coated with 3.75 kgs of gold. Siddhi Vinayak temple is flocked by over 25 thousand devotees and the number also goes over lakhs on Tuesdays and on Sankashti Chaturthis. 

6. Golden Temple, Amritsar

Image Credit: travelquest

Wealth: Undisclosed

Known as the Harmandir Sahib, the Golden Temple is the holiest Gurdwara of Sikhism. Built under the patronage of Guru Arjan Dev, the canopy of the temple is made of gold. Devotees sing gurbaani kirtan from the opening of the temple gates till they close. The kitchen at the temple feeds up to 100,000 people and the langar is devoured by all the devotees. The figures of the temple money is not made public, but it’s estimated that it goes over crores!

7. Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

Image Credit: wikipedia

Wealth: Over 60 crores

The temple is located on the banks of Vaigai river in Madurai, and is said to be one of the wealthiest temples in the whole of South India. Dedicated to Lord Shiva, the temple attracts around 10 lakh devotees every year. 

8. Sabarimala Temple, Kerala

Image Credit: newsx

Wealth: Rs 105 crores

This pilgrimage site attracts over a million devotees each year. The temple, dedicated to Lord Ayyappa, is said to be so rich that the temple committee are thinking of employing robots for the service! It has over 15 kgs of gold and its annual income is over Rs 105 crores!

9. Guruvayurappan Temple, Kerala

Image Credit: thehindu

Wealth: 50 crores

The Guruvayurappan temple is known as the ‘Holy Abode of Vishnu on Earth’. The temple is known to have 600 kgs of gold with 500 kgs deposited in the State Bank of India. With an annual income of Rs 50 crore, the temple stores its wealth in its inner chambers.

10. Jagannath Temple, Puri

Image Credit: epuja

Wealth: 208 kg gold and 25,711 acres of land

It’s an irony that one of the richest temples in India needs an emergency structural intervention today. The temple receives more than 10 kg gold from the devotees as donations. The Lord dons gold jewellery of over 208 kg during the famous Suna Besha ritual. It’s also surprising that 30,000 acres of land is registered under the name of Lord Jagannath, making him the richest landlord!

11. Somnath Temple, Gujarat

Image Credit: myoksha

Wealth: 109 kg gold

The temple dedicated to Lord Shiva is Gujarat’s first temple to deposit gold to the PM’s Gold Monetisation Scheme. The trust of the temple owns land worth Rs 1639 crore. A leading diamond merchant donated 40 kg of gold to the temple making the shrine’s golden collection 109 kg!

12. Kashi Vishwanath Temple, Varanasi

Image Credit: journeymart

Wealth: Undisclosed

A former priest at this temple had accused the temple management of hiding 99 kg of gold in its chambers. Kashi Vishwanath remains one of the oldest and holiest Hindu temples. Its spirals and domes are made of gold, thus making it look like the Golden Temple. Though the assets of the temple are undisclosed, the temple is known for its riches.

13. Mahalaxmi Temple, Kolhapur

Image Credit: Wikipedia

Wealth: Undisclosed

The temple dedicated to Goddess Laxmi is bound to be rich. According to a report, the temple appeared in the list of 3,067 temples whose total income came to Rs. 14,66,83,000 during the accounting year 2013-14!

15 Cleaning Hacks That Will Just Sort Your Life Out

We are not the generation that would take out a vacuum cleaner to clean our homes. Yet we want to keep everything spic and span. Quick little tricks that don’t take too much time and patience is what we need. To manage our household chores better, we're bringing you 15 cleaning hacks that will make our work easier. You can thank us later!  

1. Remove water rings on furniture with a blow dryer.  

Personally, I think water rings are one of the most stubborn marks and don’t go away easily. But a hair dryer is what helps. All you need to do is keep the blow dryer really close to the ring and it’ll disappear in no time. 

2. Carpet stains can be removed easily with an iron. 

Carpets and rugs need massive cleaning. What to do? It’s simple, just spray a mix of 2 parts water and 1 part vinegar on the rug, and iron it for 30 seconds. 

3. Use lemon to clean spots on metal and stainless steel faucets.  

Have you ever wondered why most utensils detergents have lemon in them? It’s because lemon has cleaning properties. Use sliced lemon and rub it on your metal or stainless steel faucets and you’ll see them shining. Lemon helps in removing rust as well. 

4. Make your keyboard shine with an old tooth brush. 

We don’t think much about cleaning our keyboards, even though they are the dirtiest of things in our surroundings. Unplug the keyboard, dust its top and between its keys with an old toothbrush. 

5. Remove stains on cloth with a chalk. 

Chalk has superb absorbing qualities. All you have to do is rub the stain with chalk. 

6. Acetone on a microfiber cloth will help you get rid of nail paint stains. 

Pour some acetone on a microfiber cloth and apply it on the stain, and it should vanish within seconds. 

7. Grate raw potato to clean your grater.

The grater is another tool that's hard to clean, especially, if you grated cheese with it, because that refuses to go away. We use potato because its hardness  along with the oxalic acid helps in bidding goodbye to sticky cheese. 

8. Coffee stains will vanish easily with the help of baking soda. 

9. Make a ball of aluminium foil and add some soap to it for the the perfect cleaner for your baking dishes. 

We all love crumbling our aluminium foil and that’s what we have to do here. Make that ball, add some soap cleaner and scrub like a boss. 

10. Coca Cola works well with oil stains too. 

Yup, in fact, Coca Cola is considered great at restoring stained carpets, clothes, curtains and more. 

11. Toothpaste can make your old sneakers look like a new pair. 

Toothpaste is a magical ingredient. It can help you clean a lot of things including your car’s headlights and a lot more. Toothpaste helps remove pimples too, but let’s leave that for another story.  

12. Toothpaste can also help make your engagement ring shine 

13. How to clean a hair brush? Use your shampoo. 

Dip it in shampoo for a while. That’s it. 

14. Use a razor to clean the paint on your clothes. 

15. Clean your earpods with a little amount of warm liquid or a dry tooth brush. 

Earpods need to be cleaned. Don’t believe people if they tell you otherwise. Just put some warm water on your finger tip, yes that’s what we mean by ‘little’ and rub the ear buds. You could use rubbing alcohol as well, although rubbing with a dry brush will do the job too.  

Facebook Messenger Lets 50 Friends Get In on a Call

facecebook last week announced that it had rolled out group calling worldwide in its Messenger app. Members engaged in a group conversation can tap the phone icon on their screen to initiate a group call. They can manage individual participants on the next screen.

Members of a group who miss the initial call can tap the phone icon in the group chat to join the call while it's in progress.

The feature allows up to 50 participants and is available only in the latest version of Messenger.

Move Over, Phone Carriers

The announcement likely will cause concern among telecommunications companies because "if you consider that social media's a form of asynchronous communication, then Facebook is the largest telecom on the planet, with about 1.3 billion subscribers," observed Michael Jude, program manager at Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan.

"Now add synchronous communications -- that is, communications in real time -- and Facebook's beginning to come into focus as the next paradigm of communications: async and sync combined," he told TechNewsWorld. "This could be a game changer."

Messaging apps Viber and Line already offer group calling for up to 200 people.

However, "Facebook is different -- it's a social media site with a huge following that now offers direct communication to groups of people," Jude said. "Viber and Line are much smaller pools of people and don't have the rich social media capabilities that Facebook does."

The calling feature is in software, so "if Facebook sees a need to expand the scope of the service, they could probably do it by flipping a switch," he noted.

Facebook stands to gain "a substantial portion of the millennial telecom business," Jude suggested.

Further, the company launched a beta of its Messenger Platform with bots and its Send/Receive API, as well as bots for the Messenger Platform. How those features will play into group calling remains to be seen.

Killing Off Telcos

Facebook's move highlights the threat that new technologies pose to telecom companies.

"As we move farther and farther from traditional PBXs and wired phone lines to VoIP services, many of which are either very cheap or free, telecom companies are going to lose this revenue," noted Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

"They've had plenty of warning," he told TechNewsWorld. "This is just another one of those services that will make it easier for small companies and individuals to cut their phone cord."

Facebook began offering VoIP in 2013. A year later, it fully rolled out audio calls and had 10 percent of the global VoIP phone call market.

Facebook "is a much bigger threat" than chat apps "because far more people are likely to try and like it, due to its visibility," Enderle said.

Facebook Messenger has more than 900 million monthly active users.

"The overall trend is making traditional telephones obsolete," Enderle said. "This is just another indicator that trend is reaching critical mass, putting traditional telecom services increasingly on death watch."

Wireless carriers won't be hit as hard, because data charges apply to calls made through Facebook and other apps, unless WiFi is used.

What About Video?

Skype in February began supporting group video calls on iOS and Android for up to 25 people, ooVoo lets users make free high-quality video calls to groups of up to 12 people on any device, and Tango supports video calls to groups of up to 50 people.

Facebook reportedly is working on a group video calling feature, but "video introduces some issues associated with bandwidth, both in the network and on the end device," Frost's Jude pointed out.

Still, he said, "I expect Facebook will do something like that eventually."