A 8th century temple of Lord Krishna - Ambalappuzha

Ambalappuzha is a small town located near Alappuzha in Kerala. The town is famous for its ancient and beautiful Krishna temple. 

The temple built by the local ruler, 'Chembakasserry Pooradam Thirunal-Devanarayanan Thampuran' in 790 CE is associated with the famous temple of Guruvayurappan. During the raids of Tipu Sultan in the year 1789 CE, the deity from Guruvayurappan temple was brought here for safekeeping.

The 'paayasam' (a kind of sweet pudding made of rice and milk) served in this temple is very famous among the devotees, and it has an interesting legend behind this. Once, Lord Krishna appeared as a sage and challenged the local king on chess. It was decided that whoever lost the game had to pay rice to the winner. The number of grains (rice) would be determined using the chess board in the following manner. Once a grain of rice would be placed in the first square, two grains in the second square, four in the third square, and so on. Every square would have double the number of grains of its predecessor. The king lost the game to the Lord, so he had to pay trillions of tons of rice to the Lord, as the number of grains was geometrically increasing for every square, and the chess board had 64 squares. The king didn't have enough grains in his kingdom to pay the Lord. Hence, it was agreed that the kind would be serveing paayasam to the devotees every day till the debt is paid off.

Ambalappuzha Krishna temple is big and built in a typical Kerala architectural style. However, no other shrines or icons are found in the temple except for Krishna in the sanctum. The icon represents Krishna only up to the bust and not the entire body.

Visit this temple to taste the sweet paayasam.

Happy travelling.

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