According to legend, the site of Thiruvananthapuram was once a jungle known as Anantan Kādu, which was home to a Pulayar couple who cultivated rice. One day, the wife heard a baby crying as she was weeding. After a search, she found a child so beautiful that she assumed it was divine and was afraid to touch it. She fed the baby some milk and left it in the shade of a tree, whereupon a five headed cobra appeared, moved the baby to a hole in the tree and used its hood to shelter the child from the sun. Realizing it was an incarnation of the Hindu deity Vishnu, the Pulayar and his wife made offerings of milk and congee in a coconut shell. Once the king of Travancore heard of the baby, he issued orders for the construction of a temple at the location as Padmanabha swami temple and killed that pulaya family.According to chathurvarnyam they were doing sin in that period.