Sri Ananthapadmanabha swamy---Thiruvananthapuram

The tourist car owner cum driver cum temple tourist guide asked us to be ready by 7.30 in the morning so that we may have a darshan of Sri Ananathpadmanabha ,no sooner than the Kerala king's daily obeisance to the Deity in all privacy , gets over.

As we walked into the temple from the southern entrance without camera or moblie that are strictly forbidden within, into a spacious prakaram that has Pavai villaku, that is sculptures of women holding small lamps in their scooped palms, lining both sides , we had to stop , though nobody stopped us , it was obviously so intended by the way the personal securities of the aged Raja stood barring the way , to free the way for the old and painfully stooped Raja to make his way out ,who was doing so on his own without any aid or a stick ,after worshipping Sri Padmanabha.

The rajah looks so very old and frail , he is nearly 90, yet he never misses a single morning in paying his obeisance to the deity, whose sanctum is quite a distance away from the Raja's special entrance and has several steeps steps to negotiate , at the sanctum.

I was glad that my trip began by witnessing a real devotee, a royal one , yet as simple and humble as one can never imagine royalties to be.Seeing his brave attempts to fulfil the self imposed daily ritual though bent double with age re enforced my trust that the offerings that has the world's greedy eyes has on it , is perfectly safe under his care.

The dress codes are very strict in this temple . All men and boys have to wear dhothi and bare their chest.Women and girls who are attired in churidhar have to wrap a dhothi around their waist.Sari and lehenga is the preferred ,attire.Even the policemen who are pressed into the duty of securing its wealth after it was tom tomed far and wide, wear dhothi,held by a belt and cover their upper body with a blue scarf with words police written on it.

The pistol at their hip and walky talkies held by them ,and posted at various points within the temple looks incongruous and totally out of place in a sanctified spiritual abode, just as it does at Dwaraka or Somnath or at Tirupati. Times change.

The sanctum is made of wood unlike the temples at Tamilnadu and has copper plated tiles as the roof ,with paintings around the outer wall encircling the deity.The gold plated pillars add allure and darshan is permitted only for a few seconds , though the crowd that was there in that morning was minuscule when compared to Tirupati.

The sthala purana associated with this temple is that in ancient times a rishi by name Diwakar yogi was in deep meditation on Ksheera pathi [vishnu] when a 2 year old boy swallowed the saligrama and hid himself in a hollow of a tree and emerged in a huge and majestic form of reclining Narayana, when the yogi shook the tree to retrieve the saligrama from that toddler!

Sri Padmanabha's reclining form is so long that one has to view him through 3 windows!

Amidst all the bustle and unnerving security cover ,SriAnantha Padmanabha swamy lay unconcerned in yoga nidra.His hand resting on a lingam and a handsome face with a aquiline nose facing east.
A repose that has a calming effect and is confidence bestowing.

Photo:Sri Ananthapadmanabha swamy temple at Thiruvanathapuram