Chozhiyakadu Sree Krishna Swamy Temple

Overview

The Chozhiyakadu Sree Krishna Swamy Temple is dedicated to Lord Vishnu and is located in Kottayam, Kerala, India. It is one among the ancient Krishna Temples in Kerala. The origin and evolution of this Temple are not clearly known. According to available information, the idol of the presiding deity of this temple, Navneet Krishna is around thousand years old.

Legend and stories

Legends state that village Chozhiyakkadu and its surrounding areas, a thousand years ago, was dense forest and a paradise for all wild animals. At some point of time, certain Brahmin families migrated to this more or less uninhabited forest area and built their homes and started living. Amongst them, an old male head of Pulickal Illom was famous for his saintly life and firm devotion to Lord Krishna. One day, this saintly Brahmin was returning from a pilgrimage in a wooden country boat through the Kodoor River. While he was passing through a place called Chozhiyathunadu, he spotted through the clear waters of the river, a beautiful and radiant Krishna idol lying at the bottom of the Kodoor River. This idol was such a gem of sculpture with an inner glow of divinity and moreover it perfectly conformed to the standards of idol sculpture as per scriptures.

He picked up that Krishna idol instantly from the river bed, and with great awe and devotion placed it in his Thevarappura (a prayer room where Brahmins perform daily offerings to Gods) and started worshipping. As time passed on, the divinity and potency of this Krishna idol kept on increasing to such an extent that the offerings at the Thevarappura was insufficient to retain the divine presence of Lord Krishna in the idol. One day at midnight, while this saintly Brahmin was in slumber, Lord Krishna appeared to him in a dream and gave the following instructions: Inside the forest, at the north of the Payani tree there is a place blessed with the divine presence of Goddess Bhagavathi (Mother Goddess in her ferocious form), install my idol on the soil after making it wet with the milk drops dripped by a holy cow while feeding its calf first after its delivery, and start worshipping.

The legends further say that at the time of the installation of the idol, that cow who was none other than the celestial sacred cow Kamadhenu presented herself at the spot and anointed the Krishna idol with her own milk for the first time as an offering to Lord Krishna. This the forest area, where the idol got from Chozhiyathunadu was ritually installed and enshrined, was later became famous as Chozhiyakkadu. Even now, the favorite food offering to Chozhiyakkattappan are fresh milk and Palppayasam(a delicious and tempting sweet made out of milk and rice). With the advent of Lord Krishna, Goddess Bhagavathy, who was already present there in her ferocious form, became benign and gentle. The temple premise has Lord Shiva's shrine too as a sub deity who is also worshipped with great reverence. The purpose of the daily Poojas is to maintain the presence of this Cosmic Energy in the idol all the time. Here are the Pooja schedules of Chozhiyakkadu Sree Krishnaswami Temple.

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