The Ettuveetil Pillamar were Nair nobles from eight ruling Houses in erstwhile Travancore in present-day Kerala state, South India. They were associated with the Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram and the Ettara Yogam. Their power and wealth grew until Marthanda Varma (1706–1758), the last king of Venad and the first king of Travancore, defeated them in the 1730s.

The Padmanabhaswamy Temple is a Hindu temple dedicated to Vishnu in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of the state of Kerala, India. It is one of the 108 Divya Desams which are considered the sacred abodes of Vishnu in the Sri Vaishnava tradition. The name of the city of 'Thiruvananthapuram' in Malayalam and Tamil translates to "The City of Ananta". The temple is built in an intricate fusion of the Kerala style and the Dravidian style of architecture, featuring high walls, and a 16th-century gopuram. While as per some traditions the Ananthapura temple in Kumbla in Kasaragod district in Kerala is considered as the original spiritual seat of the deity ("Mulasthanam"), architecturally to some extent, the temple is a replica of the Adikesava Perumal temple in Thiruvattar in Kanyakumari district in Tamil Nadu. It is widely considered the world's richest Hindu temple.