Chitharal Jain temple - chitharal malai kovil

I am much interested to say about one of my favorite places Chitharal Rock Cut Temple or Chitharal Malai Kovil (ചിതറാല്‍ പാറ കോവില്‍ in Malayalam, சிதறால் மலை கோவில் in Tamil). I have more things to share with you about it. I came to know about this place by my wife. She was a teacher of Excel Central School, Thiruvattar. As a study trip she has taken her students to this place. According to her information my self and colleague planned to have a trip on Sunday here. Actually we planned to start at 6am, because of some reasons we became late. So we started our journey at 7.30am from Thiruvananathapuram.

There are many ways to reach here. We selected the way Marthandam-Attoor. From Marthandam we sent our vehicle to Kulasekharam road. When we traveled 4 km, we reached Attoor junction. From there turn left to go to Chitharal. Again we traveled 2km to Chitharal junction. Locally this temple is known as ‘Malai Kovil’. We traveled about one more kilometer from the junction. It was a remote area.

The famous Jain temple known as Malayil kovil is just 4 km from Marthandam, the exact name of the place is Chitharal. The Jain temple is one of the very few surviving temples in Tamil Nadu while many others were either demolished or converted into Hindu ones. Frequent buses are available from Marthandam to Thikurichy. A number of foreigners are visiting this temple. The temple is under the control of Archaeology department

Chitharal Malai Kovil :  I have more things to share with you about Chitharal Malai Kovil. Here the specialty goes to the rocks. Because, here rocks seems like somebody has taken risk to keep the rock over another rock. Also the rocks are very huge.

Location
Nearby Attoor(3km), Thiruvattar(5km), Marthandam(7km), Kanyakumari district, Tamilnadu

How to reach Trivandrum(0)-Marthandam(39)-Attoor(4)-Chitharal Jn(2)-Chitharal Malai Kovil(1)  - 46km
Nearest Railway Station: Kuzhithurai
Nearest Airport: Trivandrum International Airport