Prabhudheva prays to the God of Elephants ‘Padmanabhan’ at Guruvayur temple

Ahead of his upcoming action entertainer, 'Action Jackson', director Prabhudheva visited the extremely famous Guruvayur temple in Thrissur district in Kerala. This was his second visit here. Talking to us post his darshan, he said, “As soon as you enter only, you get such positive energy that we feel we are in some other world only. In front of God, you have no fame, nothing.You are just a normal person. Somebody once asked me, ‘Sir, how do you promote your film?’ I said by praying to God."
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The temple has 60 elephants. Close to the temple is the aanakotta (the elephant yard of the temple) where the God of all the Elephants, the world famous Padmanabhan lives. In the month of December, many Keralites return to Kerala from across the world to visit their friends and family. Prabhudheva was blessed to have visited the temple during the Ekadasi celebrations (a very special time at the temple) and do, not just darshans of Lord Guruvayurappan, but also meet the superstar Padmanabhan.


The Krishna temple in the town of Guruvayur in Kerala is one of the five most famous Lord Krishna and Vishnu temples in India. The others being the Jagannath temple in Puri, Orissa, Tirupati temple in Andhra Pradesh, Nathdwara in Rajasthan and Dwarka in Gujarat. Even though the idol in Guruvayur is that of Vishnu, it is still known as a Krishna temple since the boy, Lord Krishna, is always said to be running around incognito in the temple precincts. Lord Krishna in Guruvayur is popularly called ‘Sri Guruvayurappan’. ‘Appan’ means God or father so the title means the God of Guruvayoor. The whole life of this town revolves round the temple.

The God of Elephants: Padmanabhan
Padmanabhan celebrated 60 years of him serving the temple recently. He is originally from the Nilambur reserve forest and came to the temple on January 18, 1954, when he was offered by Cherukunnath Namboodiri as his devout offering to Lord Guruvayurappan. The legend goes that this Namboodiri had no children and he was spending his tearful days lamenting over his sad plight. He was then advised that Lord Guruvayurappan would bless him with children if he offered him an elephant. So Namboodiri came to the temple and offered to present an elephant to the Lord if he was blessed with a child. Lord Guruvayurappan did bless him with a child and Namboodiri offered the elephant to the Lord, who named him Padmanabhan. When Padmanabhan was brought to Guruvayur, there were only one or two elephants here. But gradually, as Namboodiri was blessed with more and more children, the number of elephants increased.

Padmanabhan grew through years to be the most important of all elephants in Kerala, and wherever he was taken for Utsava, he was to be given the most prominent place in the procession. In all utsavam, if he was present, it was only his privilege to carry the ‘Thidambu’ on his head. He never tolerated any other elephant enjoying this right. As soon as the ‘Thidambu’ was placed on his head, he would stretch the whole of his body forward and raise his head to the maximum, so that he would appear to be the highest in the whole array of elephants. This posture would continue till the ‘Thidampu’ was taken down after the procession and thus, he was able to maintain his kingly posture everywhere. He has never caused any injury to anybody throughout his lifetime.

Padmanabhan’s special features:
Majestic look with a raised head and low back.
Strong straight legs without deformity.
Clear honey-coloured eyes.
Trunk is fleshy and long that trails into the ground, even if his head is held high.
Good and strong teeth.
Eighteen nails without a crack. Short neck.
Colour of black teak.
Forehead bump is broad and fleshy.
Big and raised twin domes on the head.
The area where the mahout sits is broad and fleshy.
Watch: Prabhu Dheva prays to the God of Elephants ‘Padmanabhan’ at Guruvayur temple