Mannarasala Sree Nagaraja Temple

Deity

Nagaraja and Nagayakshi among thirty thousand serpent images in the grove

Where

Haripad, Alappuzha, Kerala · 9.30N 76.53E

Usual hours

5.30 am – 12 pm, 5.30 pm – 8 pm — hours change with festivals and the season; check before travelling. Were these right when you went?

Grahas

Rahu Ketu

Visited for

The great Naga kshetram of Kerala, where the priestess is the Amma of the family. Uruli kamazhthal for children and noorum palum for Sarpa dosham are its offerings; Ayilyam in Thulam is its day.

The sthala purana has it that when the forest here was burnt, a serpent was scorched and crawled to the house of the family that lives beside the temple, and that the lady of the house nursed it with milk and ghee.

A son is said to have been born to her afterwards with five hoods, who lived in the house, and who in time went down into the cellar of the illam and stayed there. The cellar is still kept, and is opened only by the lady of the house.

Worship at Mannarasala is conducted by the Amma of the illam — a woman as chief priest, which is found at almost no other temple in Kerala and is the arrangement people come as much to see as the grove itself.

Mannarasala is the principal Naga kshetram of Kerala. The grove holds a very large number of stone serpent images, added over generations by families making offerings, and they line every path.

The two offerings the temple is known for are uruli kamazhthal, in which a couple hoping for a child places a bronze vessel upside down in the shrine, and noorum palum, rice flour and milk poured for the serpents.

The grove is the temple. Serpent images stand in ranks under the trees, thousands of them, and the shrines of Nagaraja and Nagayakshi are among them.

Upturned urulis are stacked where they were left, and a family that has had a child comes back to turn its own vessel the right way up.

The illam, the family house with the cellar, stands beside the temple and is part of the visit.

The Ayilyam of Thulam is the great festival, when the Amma carries the image in procession from the illam to the temple.

The Ayilyam star of each month, the Ayilyam of Kanni and Sivaratri are the other days people come for. Sarpa dosham offerings are made all year.

Also called

Mannarasala Nagaraja Temple, Mannarasala Illam

Reaching it

Mannarasala is near Haripad in Alappuzha district, about 3 km from Haripad railway station and roughly 40 km south of Alappuzha on the coastal road.

• Chakkulathukavu Sree Bhagavathy Temple 8.1 km · Sakta (Amman)
• Sreevallabha Temple, Thiruvalla 8.5 km · Vaishnava
• Chengannur Mahadeva Temple 9.1 km · Saiva
• Aranmula Parthasarathy Temple 16.5 km · Vaishnava
• Ambalappuzha Sree Krishna Temple 21.7 km · Vaishnava
• Panachikkadu Saraswathy Temple 25.7 km · Sakta (Amman)

Been to this temple? The things that change — whether the hours on this page were right, whether the sannidhi was open, how long the queue was on a Saturday — are exactly what no printed source keeps current, and what the next person travelling here needs.

• Were the hours right when you went?
• Is anything on this page wrong or out of date?
• A photograph of the gopuram, the tank, or the notice board

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