Thirunavaya Navamukunda Temple

Thirunavaya was the venue of the Mamankam, which Kerala Tourism and Incredible India describe as a 28-day festival held once every twelve years, combining trade fairs, martial arts, scholarly contests, rituals and folk arts. Wikipedia dates it to at least the 8th century CE. The Week (2026) notes that under the Zamorins of Calicut it also saw armed clashes between rival rulers' forces, and that it ended in 1755. Little physical evidence of the festival remains, but sites linked to it, such as the Nilapadu Thara and Manikkinar, still draw visitors, according to Kerala Tourism.

A Kerala Tourism festival listing records that the region was ruled by the Cheraman Perumals and then by the Vettathu Rajas, and that after the last Vettathu Raja died in 1793 the British East India Company handed the temple to the Zamorin of Calicut. Wikipedia states that the temple building was damaged during the Mysorean invasion in the 18th century and again in 1921, and that the present structure is in the Kerala style.

Today, according to Wikipedia, the Zamorin of Kozhikode is the temple's managing trustee under the Malabar Devaswom Board. In early 2026 a large Mahamagha Mahotsavam, promoted by its organisers as a revival of the Mamankam tradition, was held on the riverbank near the temple, as reported by The Week.

Architecture and sacred features

Wikipedia describes the temple as built in the traditional Kerala style, with an outer wall, a metal-clad flagstaff, a lamp post, a nalambalam enclosing the sanctum, and a namaskara mandapam before it. The square sanctum has a granite base, laterite walls and a tiled conical roof, with wooden and stucco carvings of scenes from the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Kerala Tourism notes sculptures of the ten avatars of Vishnu.

The standing four-armed image of Navamukunda faces east and, per Wikipedia, is about six feet tall. Goddess Lakshmi has a separate shrine in the north-west of the enclosure, unusual among Kerala's Vishnu temples.