Thiruvanchikulam Mahadeva Temple

01Two friends and Kailash

Cheraman Perumal, king of the Cheras at Mahodayapuram and himself counted among the sixty-three Nayanars, was a close friend of Sundarar, the Tamil poet-saint. Sundarar came to his capital and sang a patikam to the Shiva of Anchaikkalam. Sekkizhar’s Periya Puranam tells that while Sundarar was here, Mahadev sent a white elephant to bring him to Kailash. Cheraman, hearing of it, mounted his horse, whispered the Panchakshara into its ear, and rode into the sky after his friend. On Swati in the month of Karkidakam the temple still keeps the day of their ascent with a procession of the two saints’ murtis.

02The Chera capital

Thiruvanchikulam stood in Mahodayapuram, capital of the Chera Perumals who ruled much of Kerala from about the 9th to the early 12th century, and close to the old port of Muciri. The temple is built in the Kerala manner, with a square sanctum, a copper-sheeted roof and a wide outer enclosure with a lamp-wall. It belonged later to the Kodungallur royal family and is now in the care of the Cochin Devaswom Board. With Kodungallur Bhagavathy temple and the old port sites around it, it forms the oldest layer of Hindu Kerala you can still walk through.

The life of this place