The Temples of India : Guruvayur- Kerala

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As I wrote in my earlier blog, Temples in India, have a cultural mooring.

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The Guruvayur Temple in the District of Thrissur is probably the temple closest to the heart of the people of Kerala, specially for those who have migrated away from Kerala for a living.

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I grew up in Mumbai and remember the “Kochu Guruvayoor” temple in Matunga. Kochu means small in Malayalam. This was a temple built by the Ashtika Samaj initially as a Sri Ramachandra temple. Later, based on demands from devotees the temple added lord Karthikeya, Navagraha idols, lord Kochu Guruvayurappan and Lord Ayyappa. Thus, this became a multiplex temple!

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For each in and every function all the people from Kerala would rush off to this small temple. Whether it was marriages, birthdays or festivals you could be sure of a large number of us congregating at Kochu Guruvayur.

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A short History

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Guruvayur is an ancient temple town mentioned in old Tamil texts dating back to the 14th Century where it is mentioned as Kuruvayur.

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Legends have it that the temple was built by the Vishwakarma the divine architect for Brihaspati, Guru of the Gods and Vayu, the Wind God.

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The story goes that after Dwarka was submerged in a deluge, Guru Brihaspati and the wind God Vayu met Krishna who gave them an idol instructing them to install and consecrate it an ideal spot-on Earth.

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Guru and Vayu come down to the banks of the Rudratheertha lake where lord Shiva was doing meditation for ages. Recognizing the need of the two, Lord Shiva suggested them to build on the banks of the lake where he was doing his meditation and moved off from there to Mamiyur.
Guru and Vayu built the temple and installed the lord there and thus the place became Guruvayur and Krishna became Guruvayurappan here.

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Legend has it that in view of this magnanimity on the part of Lord Shiva, you need to pray to him also to get the full benefit of your darshan at Guruvayur.

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The Temple pond at Guruvayur is called the Rudratheertham and Lord Shiva is said to have had his bath and meditated here daily.

There are many stories associated with the temple. 
King Janamajeya, the son of Parikshith and the grandson of Abhimanyu conducted a huge yagna to take revenge on Takshaka, the king of snakes. 

Takshaka had killed Parikshith in revenge against Arjuna the Pandava who had burned Khandavaprashta forests and in the fire thousands of snakes had died.

The yagna forced snakes all over the world into the sacrificial fire but one of them got hold of the Sun God Surya’s chariot wheel and would not let go. Surya and his chariot were thus pulled towards the sacrificial fire. Fearing the world would end if Surya entered the fire,the Dhevas, the divine Gods pleaded for stopping the Yagna. 

Asthika, the son of the sage Jarathkaru and the serpent Goddess Manasa arrived at the Yagna and managed to convince King Janamajeya to stop the sacrifice and the needless killing of the snakes. 
Thus Takshaka the snake king was saved.

But violence has its own repercussions and the senseless killing of the snakes resulted in King Janamajeya being cursed with an incurable skin disease which disfigured him and gave pain and despair.

On the advise of the sage Athreya, King Janamajeya came to Guruvayur and spent months worshiping Krishna here. After months his prayers were answered and he was miraculously cured and returned home healthy. Thus the cycle of violence and revenge was broken.

King Janamajeya in gratitude built a a full fledged grand temple there.

There are many such legends and stories of Guruvayur.

When we look at modern history as such, we find that the temple continued to be a cultural mooring for the people of the region. The temple was in the Kingdom of Kozhikode, or Calicut, when the Dutch raided Guruvayur looted its treasure and set fire to the temple. Luckily there was not much damage but repairs took time and were effected only after a couple of decades.

In 1766 Hyder Ali of Mysore, raided and sought a ransom for not destroying the Temple. A huge sum was paid as protection money to him. The ransom impoverished the temple but surprisingly the same Hyder Ali later came to the rescue and the temple was saved.

His son Tipu Sultan became the ruler of Mysore and invaded Guruvayur in 1789. He managed to destroy some of the smaller shrines and set fire to the main temple. But the rain came down, providentially,and the temple was saved.

Tipu finally lost to the Kingdom of Travancore and the British; and peace came to Guruvayur.

The Temple and its surroundings were repaired and restored over the years and what you now see is a amalgam of the original structures and the repairs over the years.

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The annual visits to Kerala during vacations would also involve at least one visit to the original Guruvayur temple. Even today for all of us spread over the world a visit to Kerala would not be complete without a visit to Guruvayur for Darshan.

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The visits to Guruvayur did not involve much planning those days, there used to be no such crowds as you see today. You left your village by the earliest bus available and there used to one at 6 am from our village direct to Guruvayur. Getting up early in the morning, having a bath and getting into the rickety state transport bus was a small adventure for us. So different from Mumbai. There would be our aunts with us, the younger ones detailed to look after us kids.

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The journey would seem long and interminable to our young minds, but it was just about 3 hours. There would be a noisy bus stand with buses from all over Kerala, hordes of people, the small shops selling all sorts of stuff but we kids would focus on the soda and lemon juice available at these shops. 

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The loudspeakers on the temple would be blaring devotional songs interrupted with announcements. There normally would be no long lines of devotees waiting outside the temple but there would be a small line inside.

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The visit to the temple would involve removing our shirts and keeping our upper bodies bare for the males irrespective of age. There would be an elephant or two in the courtyard, percussion and Nadaswaram being played inside. We would have our darshan and then scramble for the sandalwood paste from the priest. One of the adults would go and get the payasam, the sweet milk and rice that we so loved. A meal at one of the “brahmin hotels” outside the temple and we would be back at the bus stand by afternoon.

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The returning crowds would have now gathered here and it would be noisy and interesting for a small boy from Mumbai with its colors, noise, smells so different from Mumbai. There would be persons standing near each bus shouting the destinations of the buses and the places it would stop en-route. But most of the private buses would stop anywhere you wanted if you asked nicely. There would also be announcements over the public address system. It would be chaotic noisy and quite dirty with rubbish strewn around and people chewing pan and spitting it out anywhere and everywhere. The public toilet would be unusable and we kids would relieve ourselves on the roadside bushes.

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Over the years as we grew up the visits changed as the crowds increased and we needed more comfort. We would start in the evening in our own vehicle, reach late evening and book into one of the hotels which had mushroomed all over the place.

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Early morning there would be a scramble to have a bath and reach the line early so as to be as ahead as one could be.

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There would jostling and pushing once you were inside the temple precincts and people shouting out their devotion and once you reached inside in front of the lord you had seconds only to view him before being pushed out.

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We would then go for lunch or breakfast depending on how much time it took for the darshan. If it was breakfast, we would still go to Ramakrishna hotel, just outside the temple.

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Lunch earlier would have been at the Hotel Elite but over the years there are other options.

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I had not been to Guruvayur for at least three years though I am back in Kerala now. A childhood friend and his wife were driving down on a long journey all the way from Mumbai to the forests in Kerala in search of the elusive slender loris. 

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We planned to meet at Guruvayur as it would give them a welcome break, have darshan and also give us time to catch up over a long evening.

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The pandemic had brought in changes, you needed to book in advance, online, selecting your time slot. There was a limited number available for each time slot on a day so you needed to do this well in advance. But the booking is easy on the Guruvayur Devaswom board website and if required you can book accommodation at their various guest houses too. You need to know your birth star for the booking and if you don’t know you can get it from their site based on your date and time of birth. The temple entry is allowed only for Hindus.

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I booked for a 9.30 am darshan and set off on the 21st to Guruvayur from Cochin alone in my car.

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The NH 66 is the shortest route from Cochin and you avoid going through Thrissur. It is a fairly decent road with not many potholes or bad surfaces, some very scenic stretches and not too crowded over all on the day I went. But on the flip side, it’s narrow and twisty has vehicles coming at you at top speed with little regard for safety. Some of the stretches are very narrow and when there is a huge truck coming at you from the opposite side… It’s a bit frightening for someone not accustomed to drive on Kerala roads. Add to this pesky three and two wheeler who turn without any indication or just come on to the road from the side suddenly. You are kept on your toes and I was reminded of the video games my kids play, you need to be alert and focused all the while, which means you cannot really enjoy the scenery if you are driving.

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I had booked the Devaragam hotel opposite the Guruvayur railway station. This hotel is owned by the K.P. Namboodiri group. I had no difficulty in finding the hotel, google took me right up to the main entrance and also the hotel being opposite the railway station helps in finding bit easily.

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We had stayed at the Windsor Rajadhani during a recent trip to Trivandrum and the experience was horrible in all respects. As such I was worried about my stay here in Guruvayur.

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I need not have worried Devaragam Hotel was one of the best I had stayed not only in Guruvayur but in Kerala.

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The staff were friendly, helpful and eager to make you comfortable. The hotel is not very large, a mid sized hotel but very clean and well maintained. The check in was smooth and quick, the hotel Wi-Fi worked well and a refreshing bath later wiped out all the tiredness from my trip.

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Once my friends joined me, we walked up to the Mammiyoor Shiva temple nearby which was just under a km from our hotel.

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The climate was pleasant and the walk did not tax us much. The Pandemic has meant that the crowds are much less but there are restrictions in place. After taking down our names, places of origin and mobile numbers we were let inside the temple. As we were not wearing dhotis, we could not go right up to the Garba griha, the inner most sanctum, but had a good darshan from the outer door and went around the outer part of the temple. Photography is not allowed inside the temple so we could not take any photographs.

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We moved on and took an auto to the Krishna temple and found that if we had worn dhotis and carried our e booking details, we could have entered the temple tonight itself though our booking was for the next day. This was because there were no crowds and the line for darshan was empty.

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There was a line to have darshan from outside, you could stand just outside the main entrance and view the lord. You could do this without wearing a dhoti or any advance booking. We stood in this line and after about 30 minutes we were in place to have a darshan albeit from outside.

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The dinner service at our hotel would close at 9 pm and most hotels in Guruvayur close early especially now that there is a pandemic so we did not linger around. We just looked at the shops lining both sides cursorily and walked back to our hotel which was just a few minutes from the temple.

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The hotel, like most Guruvayur hotels, served only vegetarian fare which was fine by us.  We had chapatis and paneer fry ( Indian cottage cheese) and a mixed vegetable. The food was good and the service excellent.

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After an excellent breakfast of idlis and orange juice and coffee we walked to the temple and found that there were a few people ahead of us.

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Our bookings were checked along with our identity proofs and soon we were in line waiting to go inside. It was a smooth process, the security personnel friendly and helpful.

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Due to the pandemic, you are not allowed inside the Garba Griha and can only have the darshan from the main door of the Garba griha.  The crowds were much less due to the restricted entries and you could walk around to your heart’s content on the outer perimeter and pray at the small temples here.

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The counters for the sandalwood  paste and for booking the puja are inside but the prasad counters for the payasam etc. had been moved outside. There were no elephants and the whole atmosphere was muted and relaxed, there was not the frenzy seen saw during earlier visits.

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Guruvayur town itself has been cleaned up, it’s much neater now, the shops lined up neatly, no rubbish anywhere near the temple. The crowds and noise at the bus stand were missing, maybe they will come back once the pandemic is over.

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I had a pleasant time walking around, alone after my friends left, reliving my childhood, peeking into shops, having a sweet soda and lemon at one of the small shops and generally feeling relaxed after a long time.

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Many people crib about having to wear a dhoti or removing shirts and vests for going inside, but we found dressing up in our traditional way was a reaffirmation of our identity and we enjoyed that.

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We felt we belong to this land and the darshan drove away our cynicism and worldliness’ for some time as we focused on Krishna, praying to him.

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We were relaxed and at peace with ourselves and the world.

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Namaste till next time.

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