VADAKKUM NATHAN TEMPLE

VADAKKUM NATHAN TEMPLE

Sree Vadakkum Nathan Temple is situated in the heart of Thrissur Corporation, Trissur Dist. of Kerala.  This is the FIRST amongst 108 Siva temples.  It is believed that Prathishta of all the idols at 108 temples was done by a Parasurama as per Sivapurana.   Parasursma did penance to Varuna and he gave him a winnow (surpa) and asked him to hurl it into the sea, as He did a large territory of land was at once thrown up by the sea; this territory that rose out of the sea was Kerala. It was then known by the name "Surparaka", from the word, "Surpa" meaning winnow.

According to some other accounts, Varuna asked Parasurama to hurl his axe into the sea. He got plain land upto Gokarna which was added toThiruvanandapuram and called Kerala (all are aware that this Gokarna is at present in Karnataka). Parashurama then wanted to consecrate this new land. So he went to Mount Kailash to his guru, the God Shiva and requested him to take abode in Kerala (it is also known as Parasurama Kshethra).  So many other deities are there in this temple.   The priests are doing poojas to them daily, thereby bless the region. Shiva accompanied by his wife Parvati, His sons Ganesha & Subrahmanya and His parashadas went along with Parasurama, to satisfy the desire of his disciple. Shiva stopped at a spot, now Thrissur, for His seat and later he and his party disappeared and Parasurama saw a bright and radiant Shiva linga (aniconic symbol of Shiva) at the foot of a huge banyan tree. This place where Shiva first manifested His presence through the linga came to be called the Sri Mula Sthana.

For sometime, the linga remained at Sri Mula Sthana at the foot of a huge banyan tree. The ruler of Cochin Kingdom then decided to shift the linga to a more convenient place and enclose it in a temple. Arrangements were soon made to reinstall the idol in the new place. But there was an initial difficulty. The linga could not be removed without cutting off a large part of the banyan tree.

Here in the temple we cannot see Siva Linga as it is covered by ghee, used for abhishekam.   A devitee visitor can see only 16ft high mound of ghee embellished with 13 cascading crescents of gold and 3 serpent hoods on top. It represents snow clad Mount Kailash, the abode of Siva.  This is a rare one.   It is said that the ghee used here does not melt in summer.  This temple is very big areawise.  

This temple is classic example of kerala architecture socked in beauty and exquisitenses. This temple is more than 1500 years old and surrounded by stone walls and covers an area of around 9 acres.  This has 4 gopurams facing each 4 directions and all the gopurams look alike.  At the back of Shiva Shrine is Parvathy. Siva is in the form of Vadakkunathan, Shankaranarayana or Hari-Hara (a combined form of Siva and Vishnu).  Lord Rama is in the south.  

Trichur Pooram is a big festival and falls in the Malayalam month Medam (april-may). This was first started by Maharaja of Cochin, famously known by then people as Sakthan Thamburan (1970-1805).  He united ten temples around this temple and started Pooram festival. Mahasivarathri and Aanayoottu festivals are also important.  Anayoottu festival falls in 1st day of Malayalam Karkidakam month (july-aug).

It is also said that some particular Rishis brought this Siva linga from north of Bharatha and gave the idol to Parsuraman and he named this linga ad Vadakkum Nathan as this was brought from north.  Then Devas were offering poojas in the north and even now the same type of poojas are done by Devas.

This temple can be visited anytime other than festivals because there will be much crowd during festivals.  It is also said that Adi Shankara attained Vudeha Mukthi (freedom from embodiment) here.

Dharsan timings:   3 a.m. to 10.30 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 8.30 p.m.