Sri Navamukunda Perumal Temple

Temple tradition holds that Gajendra, the elephant king, worshipped Vishnu at this spot alongside Lakshmi, the same Gajendra Moksha episode referenced at several other Divya Desams, where Vishnu is believed to have rescued his devotee from a crocodile's grip in answer to prayer. Both Nammalvar and Thirumangai Alvar are counted among the Alvars who sang mangalasasanam here, placing Tirunavaya among the Divya Desams glorified by more than one of the twelve poet-saints.

The temple's riverbank is also treated as sacred ground for ancestral rites: local tradition holds the Bharathapuzha's bank at Tirunavaya to be as suitable for bali tharpanam (ritual offerings to forefathers) as the Ganga at Varanasi, and the temple continues to be a site where these rites are performed to this day.

Tirunavaya was, for roughly nine centuries, the site of the Mamankam, a great periodic assembly held on the Bharathapuzha riverbank that began as a temple festival honouring Navamukunda Perumal but grew, under the later patronage of the Zamorins of Kozhikode, into a sprawling twelve-yearly event combining ritual observance, trade, cultural display and martial contest. The Mamankam declined and eventually ceased by the 18th century, but its association with this stretch of riverbank remains part of the temple's identity.

The present temple structure is traditionally said to have been renovated close to 1,300 years ago under the patronage of the Vettath Rajah, a chieftain of the Tanur region, placing an active, endowed shrine at this site well before the Mamankam grew into its later, larger form.

The temple follows classical Kerala temple architecture: a granite base rising into a laterite superstructure under a terracotta-tiled sloping roof, the whole complex enclosed by a rectangular wall with traditional gateways and an outer pavilion (Chuttambalam). The main sanctum, the Sri Kovil, stands on a slightly raised platform reached by a short flight of steps, its wooden panels carved with scenes from the Ramayana and Mahabharata. The presiding deity is traditionally described as a four-armed form holding the conch (Panchajanya), discus (Sudarshana), mace (Kaumodaki) and lotus, visible to devotees only from the knees upward from the sanctum's threshold, a distinctive feature of darshan at this particular shrine.

Beyond the historic Mamankam, the temple observes its own regular festival calendar; the riverbank setting also makes it an active centre for ancestral-rite ceremonies (bali tharpanam) performed by pilgrim families outside the main festival season.

The temple has no separate temple tank; the Bharathapuzha river itself serves as the theertham for all rituals, a feature shared with only a handful of Divya Desams. Darshan of the deity is partial by design (visible from the knees up from the sanctum entrance) which is itself part of the shrine's distinct character among the 108.