Chinakkathoor Bhagavathi Temple

Chinakkathoor Bhagavathi Temple is at Palappuram, near Ottapalam in Kerala's Palakkad district. It has two shrines: Melakavu, the upper shrine, believed to be the older, and Thazhekavu, the lower one. Namboothiri priests conduct worship in the lower shrine and also oversee the upper one, whose priests traditionally came from the Kulangara Nair family of Palappuram. A Ganapathy shrine, believed to hold the god in his Vidya Ganapati form, stands beside the complex near a well-known banyan tree.

The temple is famous for Chinakkathoor Pooram, held on makam day in Kumbham (February to March). For 17 evenings beforehand, Tholppavakkoothu shadow puppet plays are staged in the temple grounds. The festival opens with Kuthirakali, and its evening brings a parade of 28 tuskers with Panchavadyam and art forms such as Theyyam and Poothanum thirayum, while devotees bring in 16 figures of horses and bulls. It closes the next day with the Theru, a wooden-wheeled chariot decorated by the Mudaliar Tamils of Palappuram.