Anandavaleeswaram Temple, Hindu temple in Kollam district, India.
Anandavaleeswaram Temple is a Hindu shrine in Kollam where Lord Shiva and Goddess Anandavally are worshipped as principal deities. The sanctum houses shrines facing different cardinal directions, following traditional architectural design.
Tradition holds that the sage Parashurama installed the Shiva idol, and the temple is counted among Kerala's 108 Shiva temples and named in the 108 Shivalaya Sothram alongside Kollam Rameswaram and Thrikkadavoor. Its 1,200-year-old teak-wood sanctum was formerly called Puthukulangara, and a 9th-century gosalakrishna idol kept there was stolen on 2 August 2015 and recovered by Kollam City Police from Pothencode on 11 August 2015.
The ten-day annual festival occurs during March and April, featuring traditional ceremonies including Thrikodiyettu, Pallivetta, Arattu, along with dance and music performances.
The temple stands in the Anandavalleeswaram neighbourhood, west of the Kollam Collectorate. The Tamil source gives the distance from Kollam Junction railway station as 2.5 km. Nearby are Ashtamudi Lake, Thirumullavaram Beach and Kollam Rameswaram Mahadeva Temple.
The temple's sub-shrine to Maha Vishnu with his two consorts and to Sree Krishnan is described as the only such arrangement in the world, and the temple is also the only one in Kerala where Shiva and Vishnu are installed with their consorts. An antique 9th-century gosalakrishna idol kept here as a sub-deity was stolen on 2 August 2015; police recovered it on 11 August from a house at Pothencode in Thiruvananthapuram.
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