Thulabharam in Guruvayur Sri Krishna Temple – How to Offer and the List of Materials Offered in Tulabharam
Thulabharam is a very important offering at the world famous Guruvayur Sri Krishna Temple. Symbolic meaning of Tulabharam is that the person performing the ritual is offering himself or herself to Lord Guruvayoorappan. The person performing the ritual prays that he/she is offering his/her body to the Lord and then offers a puja item or an item used in the temple equivalent to the weight of the person. In the Thulabharam ritual, a devotee sits on a pan of the weighing balance and the other pan is filled with materials greater than the weight of the devotee. Anything from Gold to curry leaf is weighed and offered to Lord Krishna in the temple. The most popular Thulabharam offerings are that of banana, sugar, jaggery and rice. Thulabharam has been practiced from Dwapara Yuga. Temples in Tirupati, Guruvayur, Dwaraka, Udupi and several other temples in Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh practice the offering. The earliest reference to a Thulabharam comes