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The city of the snake Anantha
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Thiruvananthapuram
was the capital of the kingdom of Travancore from 1750 until 1956, when the state of Kerala was created. Its name (formally readopted to replace "Trivandrum"), derives from
thiru-anantha-puram
- "the holy city of Anantha", the coiled snake on which the god Vishnu reclines in the midst of the cosmic ocean.
Vishnu is given a special name for this non-activity -
Padma-nabha
, "lotus-navel" - and is invariably depicted lying on the sacred snake with a lotus growing umbilically from his navel. The god Brahma sits inside the lotus, which represents the beginning of a new era. Padmanabha is the principal deity of the royal family of Travancore, and of Thiruvananthapuram's
Shri Padmanabhaswamy temple
. Other useful information
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India,
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