lord siva appeared to banasura after his hard tapas. banasura asked lord siva to stand as a guard to his kingdom. then lord siva and parvathi stood as guard to his kotta. usha, daughter of banasura is in affection with anirudhan, the son of lord sreekrishna. one day anirudhan reached the banasura kotta to meet usha. there started a big fight between anrudhan and banasur. ultimately anirudhan was captured and sentenced. lord krishna known to this and started a war to banasur. but as lord siva was something of a slave to banasur, he was forced to fight lord krishna. lord siva used "sivajwaram" and lord krishna resisted with "vishnujwaram". during this war between the deitees, no victory was claimed over and lord siva thrown his axe against lord krishna from the banasura hills. the axe was believed to have fallen in mazhuvannur. and parasurama is believed to have done the foundation to the temple