Kottarakkara Mahaganapathy Temple
Kottarakkara Mahaganapathy Temple is a famous worship place of Lord Ganesh in Kerala. People planning to visit this divine temple should read this article to have a better idea of the temple and its rituals.
Kottarakkara Mahaganapathy Temple is one of the most famous pilgrim centres of south India. It is not only famous in Kerala but also in other parts of the world as well.
Kottarakkara is located about 25 kilometres from kollam in kollam district. The temple contains the family of lord shiva and is identified with Kailasa where the whole shiva family is present.
It is a centuries old temple with ancient works on paining and architecture. Kottarakkara was the capital of old princely state Ilayidathu swaroopam. The excavations did there now has revealed the remains of seven palaces that existed here.
Thus the land of Kottarams(palaces) became kottarakkara. Kottarakkara is also the land of temples. The Padinjattinkara mahadeva temple,manikandeshwara temple, Kulashekharanalloor Sreekrishna swamy temple are some of them.The place is also known to have connections with many events in Ramayana.
Deities
We have already discussed that the Kottarakkara ganapathy temple houses the family of shiva. So the deities are shiva facing eastwards, Parvathy facing westwards, Muruga, Ganapathy , Shastha and Nagaraja.
The Temple now popularly known as kottarakkara Ganapathy Temple was actually known as the Kizhakkekkara shiva temple.The main deity here is shiva and Ganapathy is only a minor deity here. But the temple is known as a ganapathy temple. The idol of Ganapathy here is beleived to be carved from a jack fruit tree by the Legendary Perunthachan, the great architect and sculptor.
Major festivals
The major festivals in Kottarakkara Ganapathy temple are Vinayaga Chaturthi, Navarathri, Manadala chirappu, Shivarathri, Thyppooyam, Medathiruvathira etc......
On these days special poojas are performed and a lot of pilgrims come here to visit lord Ganapathy in these auspicious occasions.
Vazhipadukal
The Kottarakkara Ganapathy temple is famous for its Unniyappam offerings. The speciality of Unniyappam here is that these are prepared in front of the deity itself.The other offerings are Udayasthamana puja, Mahaganapathy homam, breaking of coconuts, archana etc..
Location
The location map of Kottarakkara Ganapathy Temple is given here :
http://www.kottarakaratemple.org/html/ktrkaraLoct01.html
The nearest Bus station is Kottarakkara Bus station.
Reference: www.kottarakaratemple.org
its beautiful temple from out side but u haven't put any internal picture of lord shiva and faimly