Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple, Thiruvananthapuram

According to the temple's own history, published by the temple administration, the origin of the shrine is lost in antiquity and cannot be dated with certainty from reliable documents. The Bhagavata Purana (canto 10, chapter 79) mentions Balarama's visit to 'Syanandoorapuram', identified with Thiruvananthapuram, and the Brahmanda Purana also refers to it. The Tamil Vaishnava saint Nammalvar praised Padmanabha in ten verses, which shows the temple existed by the 9th century; it is counted among the 108 Divya Desams.

The temple history records that it was reconstructed and its management reorganised in 1050 CE, and that between 1335 and 1384 the Venad king Veera Marthanda Varma brought its administration firmly under royal control; records show the ten-day Alpashy festival being held in 1375. Between 1459 and 1460 the idol was moved to a balalaya (temporary shrine) while the roof of the sanctum was rebuilt, and in 1461 it was reinstalled and the Ottakkal Mandapam, a platform of a single granite slab before the sanctum, was set up. The foundation of the great eastern gopuram was laid in 1566. For centuries the temple was also governed by the Ettara Yogam, a council of priests and nobles that today has a ceremonial and advisory role.

In 1686 the temple was almost entirely destroyed by fire, and reconstruction began only in 1724. Marthanda Varma, who became king of Travancore in 1729, undertook its renewal. In 1730 the idol was again moved to a balalaya, and over two years the sanctum was rebuilt and the old wooden image replaced by the present one, made of the complex compound known as katusarkara yogam and containing 12,008 salagrama stones. The temple history records that 4,000 sculptors, 6,000 labourers and 100 elephants worked for six months to build the great stone corridor (sreebalippura). The gopuram begun in 1566 was completed, a teak flagstaff sheathed in gold was raised, and the Padmatheertham tank was rebuilt.

On 17 January 1750, Marthanda Varma dedicated his kingdom to Sree Padmanabha in the act known as Thrippadidanam, and thereafter he and his successors ruled as 'Padmanabha Dasa', servants of the Lord. In 1936 the Temple Entry Proclamation of Maharaja Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma opened Travancore's temples to Hindus of all castes; under its terms, entry is restricted to those who profess the Hindu faith.

In recent decades the temple's administration has been the subject of litigation. In January 2011 the Kerala High Court directed the state to take over its management; on appeal, the Supreme Court in June 2011 ordered an inventory of the temple's vaults, labelled A to F. Several were opened and their contents catalogued; Vault B was not opened. On 13 July 2020 the Supreme Court set aside the High Court ruling and upheld the shebait (custodial) rights of the Travancore royal family, directing that the temple be run by an Administrative Committee chaired by the District Judge of Thiruvananthapuram, alongside an Advisory Committee. The court left decisions about the vaults to the committee. No official valuation of the temple's holdings has been published.

The temple is a distinctive fusion of the Kerala temple tradition and the Dravida style of Tamil country, reflecting Travancore's place at the meeting of the two cultures. Its most visible feature, unusual in Kerala, is the eastern gopuram: a seven-tiered tower of about 100 ft (30 m) in the Pandyan Dravida manner, begun in 1566 and completed under Marthanda Varma, rising over the Padmatheertham tank. Within the high outer walls, however, the shrine follows Kerala practice, with sloping roofs, wooden detailing and a sanctum enclosed by the nalambalam (inner cloister).

The great sreebalippura, the rectangular stone corridor built in Marthanda Varma's time, runs around the inner temple; it is often said to have 365¼ carved granite pillars, each with a female lamp-bearer (deepalakshmi) and other figures. It shelters the seeveli (sreebali) processions of the deities on rainy days. Before the main shrine stands the gold-sheathed flagstaff (dhwajasthambham), about 80 ft high, made of a single teak trunk brought from the forest so that, the temple records, no part of it touched the ground.

The sanctum holds Padmanabha reclining on the five-hooded serpent Anantha, in the yoga-nidra posture. The image, made of katusarkara yogam enclosing 12,008 salagramas, is so long that it is seen through three doors: through the first, the face and Shiva lingam beneath the right hand; through the second, the navel with Brahma on the lotus and the gold and silver processional images; and through the third, the feet, with Bhudevi and the sage Markandeya. Devotees view it from the Ottakkal Mandapam, the single-stone platform before the sanctum, on which only the king traditionally may prostrate fully.

Around the main shrine are shrines of Narasimha, Sree Krishna (Thiruvambadi), Sastha (Ayyappa) and others. The temple's interior walls and the corridors of the sanctum preserve Kerala mural paintings, and the complex sits at the centre of the historic fort, its four Nada streets lined with the old mathams and residences of temple functionaries.