TTD to take up Tirumala temple gopuram gold-plating after more than six decades

Vimana is the structure over the garbhagriha — the inner sanctum — in Hindu temples of South India.

According to Vaishnava philosophy, the Tirumala temple’s three-storeyed Vimana is named Ananda Nilayam.

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The details of the Vimana

According to the inscriptions and other epigraphical evidence available, the first mention of the vimana of Tirumala is from the renovation work of the temple between the 12th and 13th centuries CE, when a second wall was constructed around the sanctum enclosing the first wall to support the weight of the vimana.

The Pandyan king Jatavarman Sundara Pandyan gold-plated the roof and donated the gilded Kalasam.

Viranarasingaraya, a Pallava-allied king, performed thulabharam — weighing oneself in gold. His weight in gold was used to make the gold-plated copper sheets to cover the vimana.

According to an article titled “Significance of Ananda Nilayam Vimanam” written by Tamil scholar M Varadarajan and published in the TTD-run magazine Saptagiri’s July 2018 issue, the vimana of the Tirumala temple is a three-storeyed structure constructed to the maximum height.

The square base is 27.4 feet a side, and the height is 37.8 feet, which includes the Kalasa over the present terrace of the sanctum.

The first two tiers are rectangular and the third is circular in plan. There are no figures sculpted in the first tier. There are 40 figures in the second, and the third or topmost storey is placed with good space left out at the four corners.

It is said that about 12 tonnes of copper and 12,000 tolas (almost 140 kg) of gold were used in the construction of the Kavacham for the Ananda Nilayam.

“This very iconic structure of the Ananada Vimana of the Tirumala temple has been gold-plated since I think epigraphic record states from the 13th century, and a tradition of kind of continues,” Madhusudhanan Kalaichelvan, an architect and conservationist interested in Indian heritage and culture,  told South First.

“Over the years, every subsequent dynasty that contributed or offered a lot of wealth, treasures, and donations to the temple of Srinivasa also undertook this task of renovating or gold-plating the Ananda Nilayam vimana,” he added.

“I think it is a mandate for these vimanas to be gold-plated to be conserved, because they are very delicate and need conservation from time to time. The proposal by the TTD is absolutely justified. The vimana or the gopuram or the mandapam, or any structure for that matter, needs to be conserved,” he said.

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HC stalled Inner Prakaram project

In 2010, the Andhra Pradesh high court stalled a project taken up by the then TTD Board to gold-plate the entire inner prakaram (including walls) of the temple under a project titled Ananda Nilayam Ananta Swarnamayam. The TTD also sought gold donations to take up the project.

However, archaeologists and many other experts, and heritage conservationists objected to the project, stating that it would damage many ancient, historical, and invaluable inscriptions that adorn the temple walls.

They also expressed apprehensions that the works might also disturb the ancient structure of the temple.

The Tirumala temple walls carry inscriptions in Telugu, Kannada, and Tamil.

“There should not be any objection if the Ananda Nilayam Gopuram is gold-plated. If the TTD revives the old project of gold-plating the inner prakara and walls, then objections should be raised,” former chief secretary of Andhra Pradesh IYR Krishna Rao, who also once served as the TTD executive officer, told South First.

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