Sri Thiruvazhmarban Perumal Temple

Temple tradition holds that Kulasekara (the Chera king who would go on to renounce his throne and become Kulasekara Alvar) arrived here while pursuing his lost horse during a military campaign, and found the animal grazing peacefully on the banks of the Soma Theertham. Bathing in the tank himself, he felt rejuvenated, worshipped the Vishnu enshrined on its banks, and is traditionally credited with building the temple that stands here today. The place-name Thiruvanparisaram is itself said to preserve this story: "pari" is the Tamil word for horse, tying the temple's very name to the king's search.

Nammalvar is separately credited with mangalasasanam here, contributing verses that place Thiruvanparisaram within the same broader wave of 8th-9th century Vaishnava devotion that produced pasurams for the Kerala and Kanyakumari-district Divya Desams alike. So the temple carries two distinct devotional threads, a royal founding legend tied to Kulasekara Alvar and a separate hymn tradition tied to Nammalvar.

The temple's oldest surviving inscription, recording gifts made to it, has been dated to 1139 CE, giving Thiruvanparisaram a documented history of at least nine centuries alongside its older devotional association with the Alvars. It lies close to Thiruvattaru, within the historically Venad-administered part of present-day Kanyakumari district that later became part of Travancore, the same broader region and ruling dynasty associated with both Thiruvattaru and, later, Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple.

Built in the Dravidian style across roughly two acres, the temple is enclosed within a rectangular granite wall and entered through a five-tiered gopuram finished in the traditional tiled style rather than the plastered stucco more common further north, a detail that, along with the temple's finely carved wooden pillars, reflects Thiruvanparisaram's position at the meeting point of Tamil and Kerala temple-building traditions. The sanctum also houses subsidiary images of Vishvaksena, Kulasekara Alvar himself, and a separate Nataraja-Sivakami shrine, an unusual pairing of Vaishnava and Saivite icons within the same temple precinct.