Padmanabhaswamy Temple, Hindu temple in Thiruvananthapuram, India

Padmanabhaswamy Temple is a Hindu place of worship in Thiruvananthapuram on the southern tip of India, dedicated to the deity Vishnu. The central shrine houses a roughly eighteen-foot reclining figure of the deity, assembled from more than twelve thousand sacred black stones carried from the Gandaki River in Nepal.

The temple is one of the 108 Divya Desams, praised in Tamil hymns of the 7th and 8th centuries and in the Divya Prabandha; Nammalwar sang of Padmanabha. Around 1425 the Venad king Veera Iravi Iravi Varma built a granta-pura record-room to hold the Mathilakam cadjan records. In 1733 Maharaja Marthanda Varma rebuilt the temple, and the Ottakkal-mandapam was cut from a rock at Tirumala.

The city name Thiruvananthapuram derives from Anantha, the serpent on which Vishnu reclines here. The temple's ten-day Aipasi and Panguni festivals are held twice yearly; on the ninth day the Maharaja of Travancore escorts the deities for Pallivetta, and the festivals end with the Aarat immersion at Shankumugham Beach. Kathakali was staged at night in the Nataka Sala under the gopuram during these festivals.

Only Hindus may enter the temple; men must wear a dhoti and women a sari, available near the entrance. Visitors pass along corridors of carved granite pillars, and the Padma Theertham tank lies beside the complex.

Subterranean vaults hold large collections of gold ornaments, precious stones, and artifacts that make this one of the wealthiest religious institutions in India. One of the sealed vaults has never been opened and remains the subject of local legends and scholarly curiosity.