Devalok
Festival story · 1 telling · South India

Padmanabha crosses the runway

Twice a year, at the end of the Painkuni and Alpassi festivals, the images of Padmanabhaswamy, Narasimha and Krishna are carried from the temple to the sea at Shanghumugham, across the runway of Thiruvananthapuram's international airport, which closes for the evening.

Who is in it

Places: Thiruvananthapuram, Shanghumugham beach

The story, beat by beat

  1. The ten-day Painkuni (March to April) and Alpassi (October to November) festivals end with the Arattu, the sea bath.
  2. The images are carried out in the evening, led by the head of the Travancore royal family with the sword.
  3. The procession rests at a mandapam inside the airport, then walks along the runway with elephants and drums.
  4. The images are bathed in the sea at Shanghumugham and brought back by torchlight.
  5. Flights stop for about five hours and resume when the runway is cleaned; the route was older than the airport of 1932.

procession sea kingship continuity

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Media

The Arattu across the airport

South India · Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala Vaishnava

On the last evening of each festival the three images, Padmanabha, Narasimha and Krishna, are carried out of the west fort gate on Garuda mounts. At their head walks the senior man of the Travancore family in a green silk cap with the ceremonial sword. Within the hour the procession is inside the airport compound; it rests at a mandapam built for it there and then walks along the runway, about two kilometres of it, with caparisoned elephants, percussion and armed police. The airport, which has one runway, has issued a notice to airmen weeks before, and every flight waits. At Shanghumugham the images go into the sea. They return the same way by torchlight, and once they are gone the tarmac is swept, inspected and opened, at about nine at night. The Travancore kings built the airport in 1932 across the old route, and the route stayed.

Flight operations in Kerala capital halted to facilitate Painkuni Arat procession (The Hindu, 2 April 2026); Kerala airport halts flights for 5 hours as holy procession crosses runway (NDTV); Thiruvananthapuram: the Indian airport that halts flights for a divine procession (BBC)

Sources: Flight operations in Kerala capital halted to facilitate Painkuni Arat procession (The Hindu, 2 April 2026); Kerala airport halts flights for 5 hours as holy procession crosses runway (NDTV); Thiruvananthapuram: the Indian airport that halts flights for a divine procession (BBC)

More stories with the same people

Local story

The king who gave his kingdom to Padmanabha

In January 1750 Marthanda Varma of Travancore laid his crown, umbrella, fans and sword with tulsi leaves on the stone step before Padmanabhaswamy, signed the kingdom over to the god, and took the sword back as the god's servant.
Temple legend

Two origins of Padmanabhaswamy

Either Parashurama consecrated the reclining image, or Vishnu appeared to the sage Vilwamangalam as a mischievous boy and became a falling tree that took the shape of Ananta Padmanabha.
How a tradition frames it

The bird and the lion

After killing Hiranyakashipu, Narasimha's fury will not cool; in the Shiva Purana Shiva becomes the winged beast Sharabha and lifts him away, while in the Bhagavata Lakshmi dares not approach and the boy Prahlada calms him with a bow.
Temple legend

The hunter girl of Ahobilam

After the battle Narasimha stays in the Nallamala hills, where he falls in love with a girl of the Chenchu hunters; her people make him prove himself at their own work before he can marry her, and the Chenchus still sing the wedding.
Legend

Prahlada and the man-lion

The asura boy Prahlada survives his father's every attempt to kill him; Vishnu bursts from a pillar as Narasimha and kills Hiranyakashipu in a way that slips past every clause of his boon.
Legend

The demon in the cowherds' game

The Asura Pralamba joins the cowherd boys' game disguised as one of them, loses to Balarama and has to carry him, and runs off with him growing huge; in the Vishnu Purana Krishna reminds Balarama of his own nature, in the Bhagavata he remembers alone; he kills the demon.
From the epics

The brother who would not take a side

Balarama, teacher of the mace to both Bhima and Duryodhana, refuses to fight in the Kurukshetra war and goes on pilgrimage; he returns for the final duel, and when Bhima strikes below the navel he rushes at him with his plough until Krishna holds him back, then leaves for Dwaraka. In the Bhagavata he tries to stop the duel and fails.
Legend

The twenty-four teachers

King Yadu meets a young wandering sage who is happy and fearless, and asks who taught him; the sage names twenty-four teachers, the earth, the wind, a pigeon, a python, a moth, a courtesan named Pingala, a girl's bangles and a spider among them; tradition calls him Dattatreya.