Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple, Thiruvananthapuramਸ੍ਰੀ ਪਦਮਨਾਭਸੁਆਮੀ ਮੰਦਰ, ਤਿਰੁਵਨੰਤਪੁਰਮ

Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple stands inside the East Fort of Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala, and is one of the most storied Vishnu shrines in India. The presiding deity is Padmanabhaswamy, a form of Vishnu shown in Anantha Shayana, the eternal yogic sleep, reclining on the many-hooded serpent Anantha, with the lotus-born Brahma rising from his navel. It is one of the 108 Divya Desams, the sacred Vishnu shrines of the Sri Vaishnava tradition praised in the Tamil hymns of the Alvars, and the city itself is named for it: Thiru Anantha Puram, the sacred city of Anantha. It is the tutelary deity of the Travancore royal family, and in 2011 its sealed underground vaults were found to hold gold, jewels and coins estimated at over 1 lakh crore rupees, the largest temple hoard ever recorded.

What is Anantha Shayana, and why is the deity seen through three doors?

The idol of Padmanabha is more than eighteen feet long, too large to take in at a glance, so devotees see it in parts through the three doors of the sanctum. Through the first door appears the head: Vishnu reclining, his right hand resting over a Shiva lingam, the goddess Sridevi by his side and the sage Bhrigu Muni before him, while Brahma sits on a lotus that rises from the deity's navel. The name Padmanabha itself means the one with the lotus in the navel. Through the second door, the middle, devotees see the gold abhisheka idols of Padmanabha, Sridevi and Bhudevi, and the silver processional idol used in festivals. Through the third door appear the feet, with Bhudevi and the sage Markandeya Muni. Above the reclining figure, the serpent Anantha spreads five hoods turned inward, a sign of contemplation. The idol is built from 12,008 saligrams, the sacred stones of the Gandaki river in Nepal, coated in a special ayurvedic preparation called Katusarkara yogam. Inside the same complex are two other major shrines: Thekkedom, dedicated to the fierce form Ugra Narasimha, and Thiruvambadi, to Krishna as Parthasarathi, the charioteer of Arjuna. Smaller shrines honour Rama with Sita, Lakshmana and Hanuman, Ganapati, and the guardian Kshetrapala.

How old is the temple, and what did Marthanda Varma do here?

The shrine is very old. It is mentioned in Sangam-period Tamil literature, including the Cilappatikaram, and the Tamil Alvar saints glorified it in hymns of the seventh and eighth centuries. Historians date the temple to the 8th century, and the Puranas and the Mahabharata also name it. Legend, told in the Kerala Mahathmyam, says Parashurama purified and venerated the idol in the Dvapara Yuga and entrusted the temple's care to seven Potti families, charging King Adithya Vikrama of Venad with its protection. The granite temple seen today is largely the work of the 18th century, under Marthanda Varma (1706 to 58), the Travancore king who rebuilt it. The idol was re-consecrated in 906 of the Malayalam era, that is 1731 CE, for which he brought 12,000 shaligrams from the Gandaki river, and the Ottakkal-mandapam, the massive single-stone platform before the deity, was cut from a rock at Tirumala and installed in 1731. His most famous act came on 17 January 1750, the Thrippadidanam: he surrendered the entire kingdom of Travancore to Padmanabhaswamy and pledged that he and his descendants would rule only as the deity's servants, taking the title Padmanabha Dasa, servant of Padmanabha. Every later Travancore king carried that title, and the royal women were called Sree Padmanabha Sevini.

What is the temple's architecture?

The temple is a fusion of Kerala and Tamil architectural styles. Rising over the eastern entrance is a 100-foot, seven-tier gopuram built in the Pandyan style, a Dravidian idiom (see the Dravida architecture explainer); its foundation was laid in 1566. From the east, a corridor of 365 and one-quarter sculptured granite pillars, each carved from a single stone, runs into the sanctum, a showpiece of the Vishwakarma sthapathis' craft. An 80-foot flagstaff stands before the main entry from the inner courtyard. The temple stands beside Padma Theertham, the Lotus Spring, one of the oldest water bodies in the city, and the roofed sanctum keeps the low, circular Kerala profile that suits the coast's heat. The Ottakkal-mandapam platform in front of the deity is cut from one rock, and tradition holds that only the King of Travancore may prostrate on it, because to do so is to surrender everything to the deity, which the king had already done in 1750.

What was found in the temple vaults?

The temple has six known underground vaults, the nilavaras or kallaras, labelled A to F for bookkeeping, and a 2014 court-appointed report mentions two more subterranean vaults, G and H. For generations the vaults stayed sealed, opened only now and then by the two Nambi priests who are their custodians. In June 2011, after litigation brought by T. P. Sundararajan, the Supreme Court of India ordered the chambers opened and inventoried. Vaults C to F were opened, and Vault A was opened for inventory alone. What came out is considered the largest collection of temple gold and precious stones ever found: a three-and-a-half-foot solid gold idol of Mahavishnu studded with diamonds and rubies; an eighteen-foot-long pure gold chain; a 500-kg gold sheaf; a 36-kg golden veil; 1,200 Sarappalli gold coin-chains encrusted with precious stones; gold coconut shells set with rubies and emeralds; ceremonial gold attire weighing nearly 30 kg; eighteenth-century Napoleonic-era coins; lakhs of gold coins of the Roman Empire; and, in Vault A, an 800-kg hoard of gold coins dating to around 200 BCE. Over 1.02 lakh articles were retrieved from Vault A and its antechambers, including more than 60,000 precious stones set in larger pieces of gold jewellery. Estimates put the value at over 1 lakh crore rupees. Vault B, called the Mahabharata Kallara, is the largest of all and is believed to have stayed unopened since the 1880s. An attempted opening in 1908 failed: as the English visitor Emily Gilchriest Hatch recorded in her 1933 guidebook, the men found the vaults infested with cobras and fled for their lives. A 2011 astrological consultation, the Ashtamangala Devaprasnam, declared the chamber a forbidden zone, and it remains sealed.

Who runs the temple now?

The temple and its assets belong to the deity, and its tutelary deity status has tied it to the Travancore royal family for centuries; the titular Maharaja of Travancore, Moolam Thirunal Rama Varma, is the temple's trustee. Since 13 July 2020 it has been administered by an Administrative Committee set up under directions of the Supreme Court of India: the District Judge of Thiruvananthapuram chairs it, with nominees of the Kerala and Union governments, the Chief Tantri, a representative of the Travancore royal family, and an expert member. The court supervises it on a continuing basis, and its 2020 judgment upheld the royal family's rights in the temple's administration. The traditional bodies continue their old roles: the Ettara Yogam, the Tantri, and the Pushpanjali Swamiyars who conduct the daily flower worship.

What should visitors know before going?

Entry to the sanctum is restricted to those who profess the Hindu faith, and a strict dress code applies: men wear a vesti with an angavastram, the white dhoti and shawl, with no shirt, while women wear a sari; mundus can be rented near the entrance. Photography, mobile phones and cameras are prohibited inside, and security is tight. Darshan runs roughly from 3:30 in the morning, when the Nirmalya Darshanam begins, to noon, and again in the evening, so an early visit avoids the crowds. The temple's two biggest festivals are the ten-day Aipasi (October-November) and Panguni (March-April) festivals, which end with the Aarat, the ritual sea-bath of the processional idols at Shankumugham Beach, escorted on foot by the Maharaja. Navaratri brings the Swathi Sangeethotsavam music festival, and once every six years the Laksha Deepam lights one lakh oil lamps after 56 days of Veda chanting, the Murajapam. The temple sits in the East Fort area, about a kilometre from Trivandrum Central station (see more mandirs of India).