Place · Bharata temple · India
Sangameshwara / Bharata, Irinjalakuda
Also known as Bharata, Irinjalakuda, Kudalmanikyam Bharata, Sangameshwara, Sangameshwara / Bharata
The Koodalmanikyam temple at Irinjalakuda in Thrissur district, Kerala — one of only three temples in India where Bharata (Rama's younger brother in the Ramayana) is the principal deity worshipped. The temple's foundation is 1-century, making it one of the oldest Vaishnava temples in Kerala. The deity Bharata is worshipped as Sangameswara (confluence lord) alongside Rama, Lakshmana and Shatrughna at a four-temple circuit of central Kerala (with Thrissur Rama temple, Payammal Lakshmana temple and Moozhikkulam Shatrughna temple) that reconstitutes the four Ramayana brothers geographically. The 10-century temple is one of the Nalambalam ('four temple hall') pilgrimage circuit of central Kerala. The temple's annual Thiru Utsavam festival each April-May draws over 100,000 pilgrims.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 10.340, 76.210
Connections (2)
- Nalambalam brothersSri Rama, Thrissur
The Nalambalam circuit takes in four central Kerala temples in which Rama, Bharata, Lakshmana and Shatrughna are each the principal deity in a separate town — Thriprayar, Irinjalakuda, Moozhikkulam and Payammal — visited in one day, before noon, in order. Bharata as a principal deity is almost unknown elsewhere in India, and the circuit is the only place the four brothers are systematically distributed across a landscape.
- Shrine within cityKūṭiyāṭṭam
Kūṭiyāṭṭam is performed in the kūttambalam, a roofed theatre building inside the temple compound, and the one at Irinjalakuda's Koodalmanikyam is among the finest — a hall of wood and stone built to the acoustic and ritual prescriptions of the Natyashastra, with a specific place for the drummers and a dressing room behind. The theatre is temple architecture, which is why non-Hindus could not see the form at all until the twentieth century.
Sources
Wikipedia, “Bharata”. Archaeological Survey of India and State Archaeology monument records, and the standard regional literature.
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