Cherpu

Cherpu is a suburb of Thrissur city in the Kerala State of South India. It is 12 kilometres south of Thrissur town and is on the Thriprayar road. It is dotted by a number of temples and has quite a few rivers flowing by its vicinity. The village occupies a prominent place in the Kerala's cultural map as Cherpu is one of the main venues of the state's classical percussion ensembles like chenda melam and panchavadyam, staged as they are during temple festivals called pooram. Naturally, Cherpu is the birthplace of many leading (as well as lesser known) practitioners of ethnic Kerala instruments like chenda, ilathalam, kombu, kuzhal, timila, maddalam and edakka. Cherpu has two major poorams—Peruvanam Pooram and Arattupuzha Pooram. Peruvanam, otherwise traditionally known as one of the leading Namboodiri villages of Kerala, has today many of its people employed in the manufacture of furniture and gold ornaments. Legend has it that Peruvanam village was one of the settlements created by sage Parashuram, the mythical creator of Kerala. Cherpu was a central place for Mahatma Gandhi's village renaissance. It was known as "Vardha" at the time of the Kochi kingdom. As for its temples, Cherpu has the grand-structured Peruvanam temple besides the ones called Arattupuzha, Urakam and Thiruvullakkavu. Thiruvullakkavu temple is famous for initiating children to the world of letters on Vidyarambham, an auspicious day in Hindu tradition. For long, Cherpu had paddy fields that spread as far as Triprayar. The west and east sides of Cherpu were marked by rocks. Cherpu is located in between this rock- and water-covered area. Hence the name Cherpu, which means cherunnidam (joining place) in Malayalam.