Thiruvananthapuram

The Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram is the most celebrated of all Kerala Divya Desams and one of the most extraordinary religious sites in India. Lord Ananthapadmanabha — Vishnu who reclines on the infinite (Ananta) serpent — is worshipped in a 5-metre long reclining form spread across three separate doorways (dwaram) of the sanctum, so that the full divine body can only be seen in its entirety through three separate windows. The Travancore royal family (who still hold the trusteeship) styled themselves Padmanabha Dasas — servants of Padmanabha — and the temple treasury, famous for containing an estimated $20 billion in gold and jewels (discovered through court-ordered audits), is one of the great sacred treasure controversies of modern India. Nammalvar sang Mangalasasanam here. The temple is built in the Kerala-Dravidian fusion style with a seven-tiered gopuram and a massive tank (Padmatheertham). Entry is restricted to Hindus only.

The foundational myth involves the sage Vilvamangala (Divakara Muni), who encountered a divine boy on the Kerala forest path. The boy ran ahead and disappeared into a glomerous iluppa tree (Mahua tree). When the sage reached the tree, it fell and transformed into the divine form of Vishnu reclining on Ananta across the entire landscape of the hill. The sage prayed and Vishnu agreed to remain as Ananthapadmanabha — but the immensity of the form needed to be contained in a smaller frame for darshan, so the three-window arrangement was created.