Jagannath Temple

Getting there

• By air

  Kannur International Airport is the nearest airport, 24 km east of Thalassery.

• By train

  Jagannath Temple Gate Railway Station is near the temple, about one kilometre from Thalassery city.

• By road

  National Highway NH-66 passes through Thalassery, and Kozhikode is 66 km away.

Why devotees come here

The temple is an important place of worship in Thalassery, in Kannur district, Kerala. It is a landmark of social reform, and Sree Narayana Guru erected it in 1908. Its style resembles the Jagannatha temple at Puri.

Sree Narayana Guru, a renaissance leader, consecrated the temple in 1908, and it is a landmark in Thalassery's history of social reformation and change. Varathoor Kaniyil Kunhikannan of Thalassery was the first to visit the Guru and invite him to set up a shrine in the town. Accounts say that at first the Guru said the Thiyyars of Malabar did not need a temple, since they had their own system of worship.

From the 1920s the temple was open to people of all castes. In 1927 the first statue of Narayana Guru, made in Italy, was installed in the temple premises.

The style resembles the Jagannatha temple at Puri. Among its attractions are carved wood on the ceiling and a statue in the middle of a pond.

Tips for your visit

• A museum on the works of Sree Narayana Guru is in the temple complex.
• The unique wood carvings on the ceiling are one of the temple's main attractions, and a statue stands in the middle of a pond.

Questions people ask