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Sri Padmanabhaswamy
Anantha Padmanabhaswamy is the presiding deity at the Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple at Thiruvananthapuram, capital of Kerala State in South India. Sri Padmanabha, is one among the many manifestation of Lord Mahavishnu. Here the presiding deity Padmanabha (Mahavishnu) is viewed through three doors in a row - the siras (head) on the southern side, the feet on the northern side and the nabhi (navel) in the middle. Padmanabhan is enshrined in the yoganidhra posture, reclining on Aadiseshan, making offerings of vilvam to a small Shivalingam, to his right, the mythical King of Serpents (reptiles), protecting the Lord with its raised hoods, lotus raising from the naval of Mahavishnu and Goddess Mahalakshmi sitting on the lotus flower.
Two main festivals of the temple are the Aarattu festival (festival in which the deity takes bath in sea at Sahnghumugham beach at Thiruvananthapuram) conducted twice a year and the Navarathri festival wherein music sabhas are conducted.
Mahalakshmi is the Hindu goddess of wealth and good fortune and the consort of Mahavishnu. She is said to have taken different forms in order to be with him in each of his incarnations. Thus when he was the dwarf Vamana, she appeared from a lotus and was known as Padma, or Kamala; when he was the axe-wielding Parasurama, the destroyer of the Kshatriya (warrior) caste, she was his wife Dharani; when he was King Rama, she was his queen Sita. In the most widely received account of Laksmi's birth, she rose from the churning of the milky ocean, seated on a lotus and holding another blossom in her hand.
Lakshmi is often represented in sculptures seated on a lotus, full-breasted, broad-hipped, beneficently smiling, and sometimes being anointed by a pair of elephants. Her vehicle is the white owl. She continues to be worshiped by modern day Hindus, particularly at home (every Friday) and on regular festival days throughout the year. She is greatly revered by Jains.
According to Hindu mythology God manifests in three forms. Trimurti (Sanskrit: "Three Forms"), a triad of the three great gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Maheswara representing Srishti, Sthithi, Samharam the three aspects of Universe. Scholars consider the Trimurti doctrine as an attempt to reconcile different monotheistic approaches with one another and with the philosophic doctrine of ultimate reality - Brahman - the - eternal, conscious, irreducible, infinite, omnipresent, spiritual source of the universe of finiteness and change.
