Guruvayur also written as Guruvayoor, is a municipal temple town in Thrissur District, of Kerala State in India. It houses the Guruvayur Sri Krishna Temple, the fourth largest temple in India in terms of the number of devotees visiting per day.
Guruvayur, according to the legends may be 5,000 years old as the Guruvayur temple idol is. There are no historical records to establish it. It is also believed that Lord Krishna, asked 2 sages to take the idol from his temple in Dwarka while the city was being destroyed and establish it in Kerala. The idol of lord krishna was brought by Vayu deva and brhaspathi and was placed in guruvayur. The name guruvayur is a merge of both their names ("guru" brahaspathi and "vayu' deva. In the 14th century, Tamil literature 'Kokasandesam', references about a place called Kuruvayur is made. As early as the 16th century, many references are seen about Kuruvayur. In ancient Dravidic, Kuruvai means sea, hence the village on the coast may be called Kuruvayur. According to eminent historian Professor K. V. Krishna Iyer, the Brahmins had begun to come and settle at Kodungallur during the period of Chandra Gupta Maurya (321-297 BC).
