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Thrikkakara Antiquity

The oldest inscriptions found in the temples of kerala include those at the kandiyur temple at Mavelikkara and the ones at Thrikkakkara temple. It was the undaunting labour of archaeologist V.R. Parameshwaran Pillai and writer V.T.Chandrachoodan which threw light on the significance of the epigraphical records at Thrikkakkara.

There are more than twenty inscriptions at the temple, which give us important insights into the history of the place. The antiquity of the temple can be deciphered out from one of these records which are about the birthday celebration of a Chathan, who was the sovereign of the kalkarainadu. It has been recorded that the celebration was on a particular day when the planetary position of Jupiter was in the zodiac of Meda in the 30705th year of the construction of the temple. Unfortunately, the date of the recording of the inscription or the date of the celebration is not mentioned; so there is confusion as to which year one should start counting backwards from (i.e. from which year 30705 should be subtracted to land at the year of the construction of the temple). The script was ‘Vattezhuthu’. P. Subramanya Iyer, after a study of the letters of the inscriptions opines that it belongs to the 13th century. If one counts 3705 years backwards from that, he would reach 2500 B.C. According to this account, the temple is at least 4500 years old; which does not sound very believable. It could have been a mix up with Kali Era or some other error.


Any way the temple is definitely two or three centuries older than the time at which Nammalvar Lived which is said to be somewhere between 6th to 8th century A.D.


It has been opined by experts that there were no Vishnu temples in India, much less in Kerala during the ‘Sangam age’ or the Tamil Classical Age; hence the construction of the Thrikkakkara temple must have been done during the reign of the kulasekhara king Alvar or in times succeeding it. Karunakaran Nayar puts forward this view pertaining to the age of the temple. Nammalvar must have visited the temple after 800 A.D. It was between 800 and 820 A.D that Kulasekahara Alwar reined over kerala. The chieftains of Katkarainadu lived near the Siva temple and adopted the deities at the temple as their clan gods. The local chieftain could have constructed the Vishnu temple in order to please the Vaishnavite Chera emperor. In a time when both the king and the priest believed that worship of Vishnu was best for the elimination of enemies, the deity could have taken upon the concept of Vamana and the celebration of Onam too must have been started then. This might have led to the establishment of the temple complex at Thrikkakkara.