Devikulam is a Grama Panchayat and small

hill station A hill station is a touristic town located at a higher elevation than the nearby plain or valley. The English term was originally used mostly in Western imperialism in Asia, colonial Asia, but also in Africa (albeit rarely), for towns founded by ...

about away from

Munnar Munnar () is a town located in the Idukki district of the southwestern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kerala. Munnar is situated at around above mean sea level, in the Western Ghats mountain range. This ancient plantat ...

in the

Idukki District Idukki (ഇടുക്കി; ) is one of the 14 districts in the Indian state of Kerala in the southwest of the country. It is the largest district in Kerala and lies amid the Cardamom Hills of Western Ghats in Kerala. Idukki district co ...

Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. It lies about above sea level.

Etymology

The name Devikulam is a conjunction of the words ''Devi'', from the goddess

Devi ''Devī'' (; ) is the Sanskrit word for 'goddess'; the masculine form is Deva (Hinduism), ''deva''. ''Devi'' and ''deva'' mean 'heavenly, divine, anything of excellence', and are also gender-specific terms for a deity in Hinduism. The concept ...

and ''kulam'', meaning

pond A pond is a small, still, land-based body of water formed by pooling inside a depression (geology), depression, either naturally or artificiality, artificially. A pond is smaller than a lake and there are no official criteria distinguishing ...

Demographics

As of 2011 Census, Devikulam Grama Panchayat had a population of 23,709 among which 11,912 are males and 11,797 are females. The total number of families in the Panchayat limits were 6,166. The average

sex ratio A sex ratio is the ratio of males to females in a population. As explained by Fisher's principle, for evolutionary reasons this is typically about 1:1 in species which reproduce sexually. However, many species deviate from an even sex ratio, ei ...

was 990, lower than the state average of 1084. In Devikulam, 8% of the population was under 6 years of age. Devikulam had an average literacy of 86.3%, lower than the state average of 94%. Devikulam is very linguistically diverse, with Malayalam forming a slight majority, and a significant Tamil population (44.12%). There is also a Telugu and Khond community.

History

According to legend, the goddess

Sita Sita (; ), also known as Siya, Jānaki and Maithili, is a Hindu goddess and the female protagonist of the Hindu epic ''Ramayana''. Sita is the consort of Rama, the avatar of god Vishnu, and is regarded as an avatar of goddess Lakshmi. She is t ...

of the ''

Ramayana The ''Ramayana'' (; ), also known as ''Valmiki Ramayana'', as traditionally attributed to Valmiki, is a smriti text (also described as a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic) from ancient India, one of the two important epics ...

'' epic bathed in the Devikulam lake which is now called Sita Devi Lake.

Gallery

File:La cueillette du thé (Kerala, Inde) (13663515803).jpg, Devikulam estate File:Tribal temple at Rajakumari, Idukki district.jpg, Tribal Temple at Rajakumari

References

External links

Map of area
Hill stations in Kerala Populated places in the Western Ghats Villages in Idukki district Munnar {{Idukki-geo-stub