Temples Of Kerala

A visit to the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in the capital city of Thiruvananthapuram ranks high on most visitors’ itineraries. This historical temple is a blend of Kerala and Dravidian styles of architecture. It is also widely believed to be the world’s richest temple.

The principal deity of the temple is Lord Vishnu. The idol is in the Anantha shayanam posture, the eternal yogic rest posture on his serpent Adisheshan. Along with exquisite and intricate works on stone and bronze, the interior of the temple is bedecked with beautiful murals. These include life-size images of Lord Vishnu in a reclining posture, Narasimha Swamy (the half-lion, half-man incarnation of Lord Vishnu), Lord Ganapathy and Gaja Lakshmi (Goddess Lakshmi with elephants).

The temple celebrates two main festivals. One is the Alpasi Utsavam and the other is the Painkuni Utsavam. Alpasi is celebrated in the Malayalam month of Thulam (mid-Oct. – mid-Nov.) and Painkuni during the month of Meenam (mid-March – mid-April). As part of Painkuni festival, massive images of the Pandavas (characters from the Mahabharata) are erected at the eastern entrance of the temple. The ten-day festival starts with kodiyettu (flag hoisting) and is followed by several poojas, Pallivetta (royal hunt) and arattu (holy bath) processions.

The specialty of this temple is that it has around 3 million palm leaf manuscripts dating back to the 14th century CE. Known as Mathilakam records, they contain the administrative and financial details of temple town and Travancore kingdom spread over six centuries.

To know the timings and other details visit, http://spst.in/