Popularity

The Sree Krishna temple, located barely 30 km from Thrissur town, ranks second in popularity and spiritual aura after the Balaji temple in Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh. Around 25,000 devotees from across the world visit the temple every day.

During the wedding season

During the wedding season that peaks during Onam, the government guest houses serve a full-course Kerala wedding feast - a spread of 21 ethnic vegetarian curries and payasam (milk and rice pudding). The feast completes the pilgrimage. And the traveller returns with the lord's sparkle in his eyes.

Otherwise too, a wedding feast in the holy town of Guruvayur can be ordered at will - for a pilgrimage to Guruvayur is not complete without a sumptuous platter served on plantain leaves.

The chairman of the Guruvayur temple said the shrine on an average hosted 150 weddings every day.

dress code for pilgrims

"Women have to wear a sari and men the drape and a shoulder wrap to enter the premises,"

Institute of Mural Painting

"A fire in 1970 destroyed several ancient murals on the temple surface in the Sreekovil (sanctum sanctorum). It was difficult to restore the murals," a spokesperson for the temple said.

A dearth of mural artists prompted the authorities to set up an Institute of Mural Painting in the premises.

Guruvayur is a cultural hub

A 'koothambalam' or pillared performance stage that hosts classical music and dance renditions in praise of the lord round the year has several Legends associated with it.

Daily Prayers Conducted By

The daily prayers are conducted by 18 namboodiri (brahmin) priests or tantris,
They are led by a mel-shanti - the chief priest, who supervises the rituals in ceremonial robe. The religious colour palette is white and yellow - a carryover of the "pitambara" concpept of Lord Krishna's lucky drapes that reflects the power of Jupiter and Saturn.

Budget

Lord Guruvayurappan, the famous deity in the Guruvayur shrine, has a personal kitty of Rs.400 crore/Rs. 4 billion, 65 elephants, gold, silver, a 5,000 year-old-history - and an abode that is considered an architectural marvel crafted in wood and stone.


"The temple earns Rs.3 crore every month by 'hundi' (donation) collections alone. Besides, rich devotees donate one-time grants and elephants to the temple. The shrine spends Rs.2 crore on the rituals and maintenance and to provide for the 1,000 people on its rolls. The temple has a corpus of Rs.400 crore,"

Premises / Future Plan

The temple that is said to be 1,000 years old and with a deity dating back to 5,000 years, the premises are surprisingly clean and the approach is uncluttered. A wide walkway leads to the premises, where thousands of devotees stand in queues to enter the sanctum sanctorum.

A sharp rise in the number of devotees in the last three years has prompted the temple authorities to embark upon a modernization and expansion project to streamline the flow of devotees and wedding crowds to the shrine.Plan to build a queue complex that can seat 12,000 people at a time and a multi-level parking lot for 700 cars. We want to build a new rest house. The temple currently runs two rest houses with 200 rooms