Monday 14 March 2022
Tuesday 8 March 2022
Other shrines
Inside the Temple, there are two other important shrines, Thekkedom and Thiruvambadi, for the Deities, Ugra Narasimha and Krishna Swami respectively.
Centuries back, several families of Vrishni Kshatriyas travelled to the south carrying with them idols of Lord Balarama and Lord Krishna. When they reached the hallowed land of Sree Padmanabha they gave the idol of Balarama, also known as Bhaktadasa, to Neythasseri Potti. Neythasseri Potti built a Temple at Budhapuram in the present day Kanyakumari District and had this idol installed there. The Vrishnis gifted the idol of Krishna to Maharaja Udaya Marthanda Varma of Venad. The Maharaja constructed a separate shrine, known as Thiruvambadi, in the premises of Padmanabhaswamy Temple for this idol. The Thiruvambadi shrine enjoys an independent status. Thiruvambadi has its own namaskara mandapam, bali stones and flagmast. The Lord of Thiruvambadi is Parthasarathi, the Divine Charioteer of Arjuna who is the warrior prince and one of the main protagonist appears in the story of Mahabharata. The two-armed granite idol, with one hand holding the whip and the other resting on the left thigh holding the conch close to it, is in standing posture. On Ekadasi days, the Lord is dressed and decorated as Mohini. The Vrishnies who came to Venad and settled there are known as Krishnan vakakkar as they belong to the lineage of Lord Krishna.
There are also shrines for Lord Rama accompanied by his consort Sita, brother Lakshmana and Hanuman,
Vishwaksena (the Nirmalyadhari of Vishnu and
Remover of Obstacles), Vyasa and Ashwatthama the Chiranjivis, Ganapati, Sasta, and Kshetrapala (who guards the temple). Grand idols of Garuda and Hanuman stand with folded hands in the Valiya balikkal area.[4] The thevara idols of Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma and Uthradom Thirunal Marthanda Varma are housed in the south east part of the Temple.