Bharananganam

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Bharananganam is a famous pilgrimage center in the Kottayam district of Kerala state, south India. It is near Palai town. Bharananganam is a village along the banks of Meenachil river.

Origin of place name and Sree Krishna Swami Temple

Bharananganam is also known as Dakshina Guruvayoor (Guruvayoor of South) because of the presence of Sree Krishna Swami Temple. The place name Bharananganam is closely associated with this temple. During their vanavasa (exile) Pandavas and Panchali stayed here for some days. On those days Yudhishtira performed Vishnu Pooja here. Yudhishtira decided to perform Dwadasi Pooja on Shukla Paksha Dwadasi day in the Malayalm month of Kumbham. But he had no idols of Lord Krishna to worship. Understanding the difficulty of His devotee, Lord Krishna gave a beautiful idol of Lord Vishnu to Vedavyasa Muni and Narada Muni and asked them to perform the pooja for Yudhishtira. Narada Muni and Vyasa Muni reached the place on the bank of holy Gauna (now Meenachil) river and installed the idol of Lord Vishnu in a suitable place and performed Vishnu pooja for Yudhishtira.

The sages performed abhishekam with Gauna river water. Pandavas and Panchali conducted the Paranaveedal ritual to end their vratha. They stayed there for some more days and later left to another place. While leaving that place they appointed a local Brahmin to conduct daily poojas and gave him the wealth to construct a temple. On that occasion there were not enough water in the river to conduct daily poojas. So Bhima digged a well near to the Lord's idol using his Gada. Later this place became famous as Paranaaranyam means forest where Paranaveedal was conducted. Paranakananam is the equivalent Malayalam word and later became Paranamkanam and after hundreds of years it became Bharananganam. Since the first abhishekam was conducted using Gauna river water, even today the first abhishekam in the early morning is conducted with river water and later with well water.

The east facing Sree Krishna Swami temple is located 1.3 Km away from Bharanaganam junction in Ettumanoor - Poonjar State Highway

Other details

It is the place where the mortal remains of Blessed Alphonsa of India are kept in a chapel next to St. Mary's Church. Rubber is the main plantation. There are five schools in the town which are run by Christian management. Along with blessed Alphonsa's Church, Bharananaganam is well known for Hindu pilgrimage too. Temple of Sree Krishna in the banks of river Meenachil is one of the major temple of south Kerala.

Bharananganam is wellknown for another so many things. Renowned film actress (late)miss kumari belonged to this town. Assisi asramam run by OFM cap missionaries also situated here. They are publishing a malayalam magazine named "assisi" every month through their publishing house "Jeevan Books".