Kanjirathanam is a small town in Kottayam District

Kottayam district

Kottayam is one of the 14 districts in the state of Kerala, India. The district has its headquarters at Kottayam town, located at 9.36° N and 76.17° E. According to the 1991 census, it is the first district to achieve highest literacy rate in the whole of India...

, Kerala

Kerala

or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 located between Muttuchira

Muttuchira

Muttuchira is a village in Kottayam district in the state of Kerala, India.-Demographics: India census, Muttuchira had a population of 14303 with 7022 males and 7281 females....

 and Kuravilangad

Kuravilangad

Kuravilangad is a town located in the Kottayam district of Kerala, India. The town is situated in the Meenachil Taluk, about 22 km north of Kottayam, and is located near the town of Ettumanoor and places like Kalathoor, Kalikave, Vempally, Marangattupally, Kurianad, Monippally, Vakkadu...

. Its population primarily consists of Syrian Catholic Christians, but there is a small population of Hindus too. Mostly all household in this village have NRI family members, majority of them in United Kingdom and in United States.

Kanjirathanam is of historical importance due to a cave known as Puliala, literally meaning cave of leopard

Leopard

The leopard , Panthera pardus, is a member of the Felidae family and the smallest of the four "big cats" in the genus Panthera, the other three being the tiger, lion, and jaguar. The leopard was once distributed across eastern and southern Asia and Africa, from Siberia to South Africa, but its...

. The cave, which is made of laterite

Laterite

Laterites are soil types rich in iron and aluminium, formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly all laterites are rusty-red because of iron oxides. They develop by intensive and long-lasting weathering of the underlying parent rock...

, got its name from an occurrence of finding a few leopard cubs at the mouth of the cave about 200 years ago. A commonly held local belief is that the cave have been used by local kings.

Reference

A malayalam video documentary.

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