Guruvayoor Temple

The Guruvayoor Temple is a very busy temple located at Guruvayoor that happens to be in the district Thrissur of Kerala. This temple is visited every year by millions of devotees.

This temple is an ancient temple and is believed to have acquired its name from the Guru –the Devas Preceptor; Vayu- the Wind God reclaimed an idol in the form of a child from the floods that inundated Dwarka.

The temple is filled with devotees on any day as there is always a crowd waiting to catch a glimpse of Lord Guruvayoorappan (Krishna). This temple is the hub of all the attention in Guruvayoor city.

The temple at Guruvayoor is regarded as the Dwaraka of South India to honor the Vishnu devotees in the region. The temple is regarded to have legendary healing powers and various ceremonies such as marriages are conducted in this temple.

Guruvayoor is well connected by air, rail as well as road. The closest airport is the Cochin Airport that is 77 kilometers away. Trains to Madurai, Chennai, Kollam, Trivandrum, Eranakulam, and Alappuzha are available from the Guruvayoor railway station. There are also several other places in Kerala and nearby Tamil Nadu that are accessible to this city. Guruvayoor is located at a distance of 3 kilometers from NH17 that connects Edapally and Mumbai.

It is situated at a radius of 32 kilometers from Thrissur. This facilitates frequent plying of buses from cities such as Thrissur, Palakkad, Kozhikode and Kochi. The Guruvayoor temple devotees offer the in lieu of getting cured from various sicknesses.

This is done by offering various things such as oil, coconuts, gold, silver, sugar and many more things as ‘Thulabharam’. The deity here is in the form of a child and is believed that childless couples visiting this temple are blessed with healthy babies. There are various other ceremonies such as ‘Annaprasanams’ which is done in the sanctity of the temple.

This ceremony deals with a child being given his first morsel of rice in front of the deity.

Similarly, daily more than 100 marriages are done in the temple and numerous archana requests are performed. The architecture of the Guruvayoor temple creates a charisma and the 23 feet ‘Deepa Stambham’ with oil lamps lit give the shrine a stunning look. The gate ceilings portray scenes from the Bhagavatham established on the legends of Lord Krishna. This temple holds cultural festivals and preserves the heritage.

A procession of elephants is taken in honor of Guruvayoor in the November- December month. The temple conducts its annual festivals in the month of February and March during which elephant race is the main cheer of this festival. Guruvayoor temple is not only rich in culture but is also a highly religious temple worth visiting.