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During
his pilgrimage to Varanasi, a Namboothiri priest from Angamally had
a supernatural vision. He saw a brilliant beam of light
descending towards the earth and travelling in a southwesterly
direction. The priest followed the beam closely. At a
pre-ordained point in a village called ‘Poothanilam’ in central
Kerala, the light hit the earth and disappeared into the ground.
The priest dug the earth at this spot and saw an extraordinarily
beautiful idol of Mahavishnu in Anjanakallu (a rare kind of
black stone) buried underneath. While the idol was being
salvaged, the heavens opened up and blessed the event with a
shower of fireworks which lit up the sky and shook the earth with a
thunderous sound. This Vishnu idol was later to become famous as
Sree Narasimhamoorthy.
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The
priest enshrined the idol in a Sreekovil of its own near the sanctum
of Sudarsanamoorthy. It is said that the idol occupies a site, which
was originally the abode of Goddess Bhagavathy. The Bhagavathy idol
was relocated at a place a little towards the west, as per Hindu
ideology. Reinforcing this belief is the fact that the
multi-tiered bronze lamp in front of the Narasimhamoorthy temple
bears the image of a lion - the carrier of Goddess Bhagavathy. The
place came to be also called ‘Surapuri’ - probably because of
the presence of an entire galaxy of gods and goddesses.
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