Siva Temple Ernakulam

Ernakulam Siva temple is one amongst the 108 Siva temples, situated in Emakulam city. The west facing temple has a round Sreekovil . Five poojas are conducted. The temple is decorated with a golden mast. Siva temple has two Thanthris, Puliyanoor and Chenass. The Sub dieties are Ganapathy, Kirathamoorthy, Sasthavu, Nagaraja,Parvathy. Earlier the siva Temple was facing eastward when the Pazhayannoor Bhagavathi temple was constructed in Mattanchery palace in order to have a face to face and it was changed to westward because certain problems. The Cheranalloor Kartha who is one of the Anchikaimals would have changed the temple nada to westward to avoid Dristidosha of Pazhayanoor Devi. Another belief is that this is the idol that Arjuna had prayed and offered poojas as Kirathamoorthy.

The deity faces westward and enjoys the beauty of the sea. According to popular legendary story The sage Kulu' who was observing strict penance on the Himalayas had a disciple called devalan'. Once he behaved defiantly against the sage, his guru'. So the sage cursed him to become a serpant. There upon he was known as Hrishinaga'. In order to evade from the curse, as it was advised by the sage, he had to fetch the Sivalinga kept by other serpent in the behula forest. So he set out in search of the idol. He covered a long distance and at last came to the forest where he found teh idol. He took it cunningly from the serpent. On his return journey, he stopped at a place where there was a pond. He placed the idol on the bank adn took a bath. Then he bowed before the idol on the bank and took a bath. The he bowed before the idol and offred prayers and incantations. But when he tried to take up the idol he found that it had been fixed firmly to the ground. He tried his best but failed.

Since Hrishinaga worshipped the idol, he gained deliverance from all worldly bonds. So the place was known as Hrishinagakulam, where the present Lord Siva's temple had been cropped up and in course of time the name of the place was shortened to form Ernakulam

Southern India

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