An Architecture Unlike Anywhere Else in India
A first-time visitor expecting the towering granite gopurams of Tamil Nadu or the soaring shikharas of the north will find Kerala's temple architecture unexpectedly modest in scale and overwhelmingly intimate in feel. The classical Keralan temple is a low, single- or double-tiered structure with a copper-sheathed conical or pyramidal roof, deep eaves that throw the entire courtyard into protective shade, and walls that are often left a brilliant whitewashed limewash against which the dark teak of the woodwork stands out sharply. The whole composition is designed for a climate that delivers two and a half thousand millimetres of rain a year and for a culture in which approach, circumambulation, and the slow uncovering of the sanctum matter more than monumentality.
The plan is consistent across most major temples. A walled outer enclosure (chuttambalam) defines the sacred precinct. Inside it sits the central sreekovil, a small square or circular sanctum that houses the principal deity. Around the sreekovil runs a covered circumambulatory passage; around that, a further open passage; and around the whole an outer wall, often pierced by an east-facing entrance pavilion (gopuram) that, unlike its Tamil counterpart, is typically only one or two storeys tall. A separate detached hall (koothambalam) stands within the precinct of major temples, used historically for ritual theatre such as Koodiyattam.
Construction is overwhelmingly in laterite — the soft, iron-rich stone that hardens on exposure to air and is quarried throughout central Kerala — capped by intricately joined teak and rosewood for the upper structure and roofed in copper or terracotta tile. The combination of materials gives Keralan temples their distinctive ochre-and-dark-wood palette and their characteristic acoustic warmth.
Padmanabhaswamy Temple, Thiruvananthapuram
The Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in the heart of Thiruvananthapuram is dedicated to Vishnu in his reclining form (Anantha-shayanam, lying on the cosmic serpent Anantha). The principal idol — eighteen feet long, accessible only through three separate doors, each of which reveals a different portion of the deity — is one of the most distinctive icons in Indian sacred art.
The temple is also among the wealthiest religious institutions in the world. Its subterranean vaults, opened partially in 2011 under Supreme Court supervision, were found to contain accumulated offerings of gold, diamonds, emeralds, and ceremonial objects whose estimated value runs into the tens of billions of dollars. One vault, traditionally believed to be sealed by a serpent-protected curse, has never been opened. The temple's day-to-day administration was historically conducted in the name of Padmanabhaswamy himself, with the Travancore royal family serving as the deity's hereditary trustees — a constitutional fiction that the courts continue to recognise.
Visitors should note that entry is restricted to Hindus and that the temple's strict dress code requires men to remove their upper garments and women to wear a sari or set-mundu before entering the sanctum.
Guruvayur Sri Krishna Temple
Guruvayur, in Thrissur district, is one of the most-visited Vishnavite shrines in India and is sometimes called the Bhuloka Vaikuntha — the Vishnu-loka on earth. The deity, a black stone idol of the four-armed Krishna holding the conch, discus, mace, and lotus, is worshipped specifically in his childhood form (Unnikrishnan), and the temple's ritual calendar is overwhelmingly oriented around devotion to the infant Krishna.
The temple's daily rituals begin with the Nirmalya Darshanam at three in the morning — the only opportunity in the day to see the deity adorned with the previous evening's flowers, before the priests bathe and re-clothe him. Marriage ceremonies conducted in the temple precincts are considered exceptionally auspicious, and on most days a queue of brides and grooms in traditional white-and-gold attire forms outside the kalyanamandapam from before dawn. The temple maintains a herd of nearly sixty elephants at the nearby Punnathur Kotta sanctuary, all donated as offerings by devotees over the centuries; the most famous of them, Guruvayur Keshavan, who lived from 1904 to 1976, is commemorated by a life-size statue at the temple's eastern entrance.
Sabarimala
The hilltop shrine of Lord Ayyappa at Sabarimala, deep in the forests of the Periyar Tiger Reserve, draws between thirty and fifty million pilgrims each year and is one of the largest religious gatherings on earth. The pilgrimage proper runs from mid-November to mid-January (the Mandala-Makaravilakku season) and again briefly during Vishu in April. Pilgrims observe a forty-one-day vow of celibacy, vegetarianism, and abstention from intoxicants before undertaking the trek; they wear simple black or saffron clothing and carry a two-bagged offering bundle (irumudikettu) on their heads containing coconut, ghee, rice, and other articles for the temple ritual.
The final approach, on foot through several kilometres of steep forest path, ends at the eighteen sacred steps (Pathinettampadi) that lead to the sanctum. The deity, Ayyappa, is worshipped as a celibate forest-dwelling god born of the union of Shiva and the female form of Vishnu (Mohini); the iconography draws together Saivite, Vaishnavite, and tribal traditions in a way that is unique to this shrine.
Vadakkunnathan and the Temples of Thrissur
Vadakkunnathan, in the centre of Thrissur city, is a Shiva temple whose origins are lost in pre-historic memory; the present structure dates substantially from the ninth and tenth centuries and is one of the oldest extant temples in Kerala. Its three principal sanctums — for Shiva, for Rama, and for Sankaranarayana (the composite Shiva-Vishnu form) — sit inside a vast walled enclosure of nearly nine acres, the largest such precinct in central Kerala. The temple's covered prakara contains a series of mural paintings in the distinctive Keralan style — flat fields of mineral pigment over laterite plaster, with red, yellow, white, and a luminous lapis blue dominating the palette — that are among the finest surviving examples of medieval Indian sacred painting.
The annual Thrissur Pooram festival, held in April or May at the open ground (Thekkinkadu Maidan) immediately outside the temple, is described elsewhere on this site.
Ambalappuzha, Ettumanoor, and the Coastal Temples
The Sri Krishna Temple at Ambalappuzha, in Alappuzha district, is famous for its palpayasam — a slow-cooked offering of rice, milk, and sugar that is given out as prasadam to every visitor and is considered, by aficionados of South Indian temple cuisine, to be unsurpassed. The temple's mural of Krishna playing the flute, on the inner wall of the chuttambalam, is a touchstone of the Keralan mural tradition.
Ettumanoor Mahadeva Temple in Kottayam district, dedicated to Shiva, is renowned for its mural of Pradosha Nritta — the cosmic dance of Shiva — covering the entire western wall of the gopuram. The annual Ezhara Ponnana festival in February displays seven and a half elephants made of pure gold, donated by the Travancore Maharajas in the seventeenth century.
The Theyyam Shrines of the North
In the northern Malabar region — Kannur, Kasaragod, and northern Kozhikode districts — the religious landscape shifts. Alongside the conventional Brahmanical temples are hundreds of small, family-attached kavus (sacred groves) where the ritual performances called Theyyam are held between roughly December and April. A Theyyam shrine is typically a small, undecorated structure surrounded by a grove of trees that has been protected, in many cases, for several centuries; the deity is often a local hero, an ancestor, a goddess associated with smallpox or fertility, or in some cases a Shiva or Bhagavathi figure.
The shrine itself is less the focus than the performance: a single Theyyam artist, after weeks of preparation, fasting, and the application of intricate facial makeup, becomes — in the eyes of the worshippers — the deity in person, pronouncing blessings, hearing petitions, and granting the prasadam of a glance. The Parassinikadavu Sri Muthappan Temple near Kannur is unusual in that its principal Theyyam ritual is performed twice every day, year-round, and is open to visitors of all faiths and backgrounds without restriction.