The temples turned away at Arattupuzha
Before there was a Thrissur Pooram, the great gathering of temples in this part of Kerala happened somewhere else. The Kerala Tourism festival sheet records that the region's main festival was the one-day Arattupuzha festival, held about 10 km south of Thrissur, and that many of the Thrissur temples took their deities there.
One year heavy rain held up several of the Thrissur temples on the road. They arrived late, and because they were late they were refused entry to the festival.
The temples' officials took the matter to the ruler, Raja Rama Varma of Cochin, known as Sakthan Thampuran. His answer was not to press Arattupuzha to take them back but to give them a festival of their own, and a grander one, in Thrissur itself. That, in the account Kerala Tourism gives, is how Thrissur Pooram began.
The festival he organised gathered the temples around Vadakkunnathan, the Shiva temple at the centre of the town. Kerala Tourism names ten participating temples, divided into two groups led by the Thiruvambady temple, whose presiding deity is Krishna, and the Paramekkavu temple, whose presiding deity is Bhagavati. Smaller processions — the upa poorams of Kanimangalam, Karamucku, Laloor, Choorakottukara, Panamukkampally, Ayyanthole, Chembukkavu, Neythilakavu and others — come in as well, and Kanimangalam's is the first to arrive at Vadakkunnathan in the morning.
Vadakkunnathan is the host, not a competitor. The processions are offerings to Shiva, its presiding deity. The Ilanjithara Melam is played before the Ilanji tree inside the temple and begins when the Paramekkavu entourage reaches the western entrance. The two groups then face each other with fifteen elephants apiece for the kudamattam, the rhythmic exchange of sequinned parasols, and fireworks run into the next morning.
On the following day, the Pakal Pooram, the deities of Thiruvambady and Paramekkavu bid farewell to the Shiva of Vadakkunnathan and promise to return the next year.
The episode explains why a festival named after a town, rather than after any one temple, is staged around this temple's walls and on the Thekkinkadu ground that surrounds it, and why its most famous moments are a contest between two neighbouring temples performed in front of a third.
Where this account comes from
- Government: Kerala Tourism (Department of Tourism, Government of Kerala), 1000 Festivals of Kerala, "Thrissur Pooram" information sheet (PDF) keralatourism.org · seen 2026-10-09
- Government: Kerala Tourism (Department of Tourism, Government of Kerala), article "Festivals: Thrissur Pooram" keralatourism.org · seen 2026-10-09