Sree Balakrishna Swami Temple, Kuzhuppilly

Sree Balakrishna Swamy Temple belongs to the Goud Saraswat Brahmin community of Kuzhuppilly village on Vypeen Island, Ernakulam district. GSB families left Goa in the 16th century and many settled around Cochin; one, Venkateswara Pai, received land at Kuzhuppilly from the Raja of Cochin. His son Anantha Pai brought home metal figures from Tirupati, including a Balakrishna, which the children played with. When they kept falling ill, an astrologer advised a separate temple for the idol, and it was consecrated in 1895.

Later the family gave the temple to the wider community, and a new building began on land donated by A. Govinda Shenoy. It stood unfinished for over 35 years until a youth Seva Samithi completed the sanctum, and the idol moved there in 1964, facing east. An aanapandal with decorated pillars followed in the late 1980s, and the inner walls carry paintings of the Dasavatara. There are sub-shrines to Hanuman, Garuda, Ganapathy, Lakshmi, the Navagrahas and Nagaraja.