Editor’s Note
This article reports on the rare opening of a historic temple treasury in Mathura, an event of significant cultural and administrative interest.
The ‘Toshakhana’ (treasury chamber) of the 19th-century Banke Bihari Temple in Mathura was reopened on Sunday. This was the first time the temple’s treasury had been opened in five and a half decades. The treasury chamber was opened for inspection work. On this occasion, members of the committee of officials appointed by the Supreme Court, temple priests, and security guards were present.
Adjacent to the sanctum sanctorum, this treasury chamber was last opened in 1971. Since then, misconceptions about what lies inside the treasury have been growing.
In its August 2025 order, the Supreme Court had formed a 12-member committee headed by retired Allahabad High Court judge Ashok Kumar to oversee the temple’s daily affairs. On Saturday, under the supervision of committee members, the locks of the Toshakhana were broken. A police search team, the City Magistrate, and four Goswamis also entered the chamber wearing masks.
A member reported that the team found silver sticks smeared with gulal, a shiny gold bar, gems, and precious utensils, but no documents related to the property were found. After some members complained of suffocation, they did not enter the temple basement on Saturday. A member stated that on Sunday, the team revisited the Toshakhana and went inside the basement, but found nothing to add to the list.
Committee member Dinesh Goswami, speaking to the media, explained that the process of opening the Toshakhana gate began around 1:30 PM on Saturday and continued until 4:30 PM. After the locks were broken, the area up to the basement was cleaned.
According to Dinesh Goswami, an inventory of the items found inside the treasury was prepared. The entire process over both days was also videographed. He said the inspection work inside the Toshakhana is complete. There is nothing left to search. City Magistrate Rakesh Kumar Singh said he would submit a report to the committee for further review.
However, a matter of concern is that several property documents were expected to be found inside the treasury, but they have not been found yet. Historians of the temple say that the 19th-century temple’s records mention documents, gift letters, and land ownership papers donated to the temple by several royal families, which were kept in the Toshakhana.
Dharmaguru Dinesh Falahari, who was a petitioner in the Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi case, has written a letter to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath demanding a CBI investigation into the alleged large-scale mismanagement and disappearance of the temple’s property. The letter states,
