Attukal Bhagavathy Temple - Goddess Parvati

Dedicated to Goddess Parvati, Attukal Bhagavathy Temple is located in the heart of Trivandrum city. People visiting Padmanabhaswamy temple consider their visit incomplete without offering prayers in this temple. She is deemed to be a manifestation of Goddess Parvati and is portrayed to have four arms bearing a spear, a sword, a skull and a shield. The story goes that the Goddess Bhagavathi revealed herself to a fervent devotee of a notable family namely ‘Mullu Veettil’ family. It is said that one evening, a young girl appeared before the head of the family and requested him to help her cross the Killi river. Impressed by her charismatic demeanour, the old man helped her cross the river.

But when she was accompanying him, she suddenly left the site unnoticed. That very night, she appeared in the old man’s dream and demanded that he should establish an abode for her in the nearby sacred ground of shrubs at a consecrated spot marked by three lines. The next morning, the old man went to the spot revealed to him and to his great surprise, he did find three marks indented on the ground. The next morning, he started establishing the construction of the temple. The temple depicts both Kerala and Tamil styles of architecture.

The ten day ‘Pongala’ festival held at this temple every year is exclusively for females that attracts thousands of female devotees from many parts of the country. All the transport buses in the city are reserved for women on Pongala day. Men are not allowed to that temple that time. Pongala is a kind of sweet porridge considered to be the Goddess favourite. The offering is cooked by each devotee in a clay pot over an open fire. This festival also featured in the Guiness Book of world records in the year 1992, when 15 Lakhs women participated that time and it continues to increase every year.