Kerala Temples - Site Information

Ever since I introduced into the concept of World Wide Web, i thought of developing a web site which gives valuable information to everyone. I have uploaded my own Home Page in early 1999 in Yahoo Geocities!, just to make an online identity for me as all others does. The idea behind this site "The Kerala Temples" comes from a mail from an unknown, which i have found in my mail box. That mail was from a foreigner where he wanted to visit kerala for pilgrimage. He was guiding me to do something useful for everyone instead of working on my own Home Page. There strucked the idea !!!

Its true that we are neglecting our 1,000+ year old culture, where all other countries cherish their culture. Why its so??? Why we indians dont care for our own culture, where our culture receives respect from other countries even???

Coming back to Temples in Kerala, It has valuable stories and secrets to tell, but here no one wanted to hear. We are ignoring all our cultural values and rich traditions. I scare that if we continue to ignore, coming generation may completely forget our values and traditions.

The Temples in Kerala has been all the time an amazing factor for its uniqueness in structure, rituals, customs, offerings, festivals and all. Some of these are even connected with our great epics Ramayana and Mahabharatha. The national agenda for us, therefore, shall be to preserve and nurture this invaluable tradition that has been bequeathed to us from time immemorial and thereby to uphold the greatness of our culture. I have been receiving number of queries regarding the temples of Kerala, the pooja timings, special offerings etc., mostly from the people abroad. This points out that the temple, especially in Kerala, has been more and more relevant than ever it was. It is on this account that I have made a humble and sincere effort to introduce and give details regarding our temples to the aspirants anywhere in the world, through web media.

Frankly speaking, there are no such sites still developed to give full information of all temples situated in Kerala. Here I am introducing more than 1500 temples in front of you. Not only by just giving its name, but also you can have comprehensive information about temples in kerala like temple photo, places, offerings, specialties and much more.

The Site "The Kerala Temples.com" is designed for giving every information about all the temples in Kerala. I know it is not an easy task nowadays to gather information about ancient temples in Kerala. But I take it as a challenge

Site Contains around 1500 temples in Kerala

- Temple Offerings
- Temple Routes
- Temple Specialities
- Temple Festivals
- Temple Pooja Timings
- Temple Know more
- Temple Architecture
Famous Temples
- 108 Durga Temples
- 108 Vishnu Temples
- 108 Siva Temples
- 108 Sastha Temple
Know more each deities
Believe it or Not - Special Offerings
Road maps
Photo Gallery
Slokas, Sthrothrams & Pancharathnamala

and many more.....

In addition to that, you can also access our "Know More" facility, which gives more information about temples, special topics and hot information.

Challenges Faced


Identifying temples : Listing out all temples in kerala is a tremendous task. There is no single point source exists where we will get all names of temples exists in kerala. There are so many ancient temples exists in kerala where we don't have any source of information.

We started from scratch, listing all registered temples from devaswam boards and authenticate books available in the market. There exists other temples also, which are not listed devaswam board. The temples which are owned by particular family or village. We tried to include those temples also.

Duplication of temples is another challenge we faced. Most of temple's name associated with place of the temple or speciality of that particular temple. Main problem we faced is that conversion of temple names from Malayalam to English. And we tried our maximum to reduce duplication of temples. More and more temples keep on adding in this site.

Collecting and Authenticate information : Next process was gathering information of temples which we have listed out. We have collected information by visiting those temples, known facts, discussing with authentic persons in temples, books available in the market and also web sites of famous temples also. Its true that we have searched in web for knowing information and we tried to scrutinies it for its perfection. We have tried maximum to ensure atleast mandatory information of temples are ensured in this site like temple place, temple route, temple deity and its description.

The major challenge we face here is the authenticity of the information we provided. Even its sounds easy, its not at all an easy-go procedure to authenticate what we have. We are trying our maximum to provide authenticate information through this site.

Online identity (space in net) : The first version of this site was uploaded in web named www.kerala-temples.com. That project was started in early 2001 with low cost budget. Due to inactivity of the site and inability to extend the paid service for domain, we have forced to remove the site from server.

The second version of the site, with much more rich data and technically best have been uploaded in Googlepages.com server in the year 2008, which comes free from Google. Thanks to googlepages for providing web space with identity in web.

The third version of this site (the site you are seeing now) is uploaded in 2009 with our own unique domain www.thekeralatemples.com

Promoting the site (Search Engine Submission) : The next challenge we faced was promoting our site. Obviously, ultimate aim of a web site is accomplished only if it is being listed in search engines and reachable to all intended visitors. We have successfully submitted the same web site into Google Search Engine and regular monitoring is being done. This site is Search Engine Optimized and complies Google Web master guidlines. Almost all pages of this site has been indexed in google search engine. We have successfully submitted our web site into other search engines like Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista, Alltheweb etc.

More and more pages are adding to this site day by day. We also solicit your co-operation by giving us the details of temples, other than provided in our web, within your knowledge. It is only your magnanimous patronage that really translates our ambitions to reality. We are beholden to you for your kind helping hand in this noble venture. Visitors can submit temple details to us, so that we can update it in our site. Those who wants to submit temple details in one simple step


Credits


Sreejith Nangeelil

Sreejith Nangeelil
Design, Content & Development
Contact : templeskerala[@]gmail.com


I am bringing out this site containing useful informations of the temples of Kerala for the devotees of Kerala as well as others. My gratitude goes to the one and all who worked behind this, promoters by giving their valuable help, advices, informations, reference books etc.

I have tried my level best to bring out this site with correct information.



Books used for reference :

- Kshethra Vignanakosam, DC books
- Maha Kshethrangalude Munnil, DC books
- Kerala Temples, DC books
- Kshethra Chaithanya Rahasyam by Madhav ji
- Sree Padmanabha Swami Temple,Bhavans
- Kshethracharangalum Vrathanushtanangalum, Sreepadham



How to Use This Site



Intention Behind this Site

The site “The Kerala Temples” is built up to share information about temples in Kerala. This site can be treated as a knowledge sharing area of kerala temples, rather than a travel guide portal. Since both sounds similar, I am very clear on my intention, which is nothing but to cherish our valuable temple culture in Kerala. This project does not deal with any sort of business by tour packages or travel guiding. It is true that maintaining a site is cost oriented, even though I am putting my initial effort to build this site. Those who are all interested to offer a helping hand are most welcome.

How site is arranged The site is arranged in such a way that, one could browse particular temple by selecting the particular deity. I have classified the temples according to presiding deities namely Ayyappa Temples (Sastha Temples), Bhagavathy Temples (Devi Temples), Dhanwanthari Temples, Hanuman Temples, Lakshmana Temples, Mariyamman Temples, Muruga Temples, Naga Temples (Sepants), Narasimha Temples, Pandavas Temples, Siva Temples, SreeRama Temples, Vinayaka Temples (Ganapathy Temples), Vishnu Temples (Krishna Temples), VishnuMaya Temples. The temples those have rare deity (not in common), we have put into others temples group.

I have allotted unique page for each temples, so that visitors can get all details of particular temple at a time by visiting the page. Individual page consists of Temple name, location (district, thaluk, village), deity, festivals, main offerings, specialties, temple history, detailed descriptions, temple thanthri name, trustee, temple address, photo and route to reach the temple. I hope those details are sufficient.

Apart from these find time to visit "know more" page of this site, where it contains lots of known and unknown facts related to temples and its offerings. “Know more” page of this site is the perfect knowledge sharing area for temples, its rituals, customs, traditions, offerings, specialties, unbelievable facts

Turn ON

> Identifying and describing about each temples in kerala
> Reveal the secrets and unknown facts related to temples in kerala
> Sharing unique and special offerings of temples
> Understanding origin and history of each temples
> Cherishing ancient culture of temples and help others to know better

Turn OFF

> Travel portal/guide
> Tour packages
> Marketing or Tour Brokerage
> Tour and Hotel Accomodation


I hope you got the clear intention behind this site !!!