Guruvayur Temple

The Guruvayur Temple stands in Guruvayur in central Kerala and is dedicated to Guruvayurappan, a four-armed form of Krishna-Vishnu carved from shaligram stone. Tradition holds that after Krishna's death and the drowning of Dvaraka his disciple Uddhava brought the idol south. Brihaspati, the guru of the gods, and Vayu, the wind god, installed it on a spot chosen by Shiva; the place takes its name from Guru and Vayu.

A fourteenth-century Tamil poem calls it Kuruvayur, and by the end of the sixteenth century it was a leading Kerala pilgrimage centre. Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri popularised its Sanskrit name.

In 1716 Dutch raiders looted it and burned its western tower, rebuilt in 1747. Hyder Ali spared it for ransom in 1766, and in 1789 Tipu Sultan's invasion forced the priests to hide the idol at Ambalappuzha until its reinstallation in 1792.