Shiva under the banyan at Thrissur

Kerala was made by an axe. Parashurama threw his weapon into the sea and asked Varuna for what lay under it, and the water went back and left the land. A new country needs a god, so the sage went to Kailash and asked Shiva to come and live there. Shiva came with Parvati and his sons and walked the new shore until they reached a banyan tree on a small hill, and there he sat down and became a linga at its root. The place is Sri Moola Sthana, the original seat, and the temple that grew around it is Vadakkunnathan, the lord of the north. The linga in its sanctum stands sixteen feet high and cannot be seen: it lies under a hill of ghee poured over it for centuries, which the temple says never melts, even in the Kerala summer, and which pilgrims read as Kailash under snow. Shankara's parents prayed here for a son. Long afterwards the ruler Sakthan Thampuran cut back the teak forest around the temple and gave the town its festival of elephants, the Pooram.