India has always been a tough country for women, at least from the last few decades. From not letting her do what she wants to do to torturing her, women have faced a lot of difficulties. But recent time has witnessed a rise in women’s issues and people working towards women empowerment. But have you ever thought that men too face some kind of difficulties? Have you ever thought that with changing times, men too have changed, but people still expect them to be the same?

Recently, the Sabarimala temple of Kerala has been in the news for its strict rule of not allowing women, from age 10 to 50, to enter its premises. After reading everything about Sabarimala, out of curiosity, we did a research to see if there is any temple in India that does not allow ‘MEN’ in their premises, and what we found was not expected at all. We found out that even in a male-dominated society like India, we do have quite a few temples which do not allow men in its premises, here’s a list we’ve prepared of such temples :

1.) ATTUKAL TEMPLE, KERALA:

This temple located in Kerala worships Goddess Bhadrakali. During the Attukal Pongala festival, over 3 million women gather and participate and the temple has its name registered in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the single largest gathering of women for religious activity. The temple has restricted the entry of men on its premises.

2.) CHAKKULATHUKAVU TEMPLE, KERALA:

Another Hindu temple in Kerala, where Goddess Durga is worshipped. During the 10-day ritual of ‘Naari Puja’, when women fast for 10 days, no men are allowed to enter the temple. On Dhanu, the first Friday of December, the male priest washes the feet of women devotees fasting for 10 days.

3.) LORD BRAHMA TEMPLE, PUSHKAR:

It is one of the very few remaining temples in the world, where Lord Brahma is worshipped. Married men are not allowed to enter the sanctum sanctorum to worship the deity because it is said that Goddess Saraswati cursed the temple saying that “no married man is allowed to visit the inner sanctum otherwise trouble will arise in his marital life.”

4.) MATA TEMPLE, MUZAFFARPUR:

In this Mata temple, during a particular period, only women are allowed to enter. During the given period, even the male priests are not allowed to enter the temple.

5.) BHAGVATI MAA TEMPLE, KANYAKUMARI:

This place has some mythological story because of which, sanyasi men are allowed till the gate of the temple, while married men are prohibited from entering the premises.

There are other temples also, like the Kamrup Kamakhya Temple in Assam and the Santoshi Maa temple, which prohibit men from entering its premises during a specific period of time.

There is one more temple, the Trimbakeshwar Temple in Nasik, Maharashtra, in which the entry of women, in the inner sanctum, was prohibited. But in 2016, Bombay High Court passed an order saying that even men shouldn’t be allowed to enter the inner sanctum if women are not allowed and after that men have also been prohibited from entering the inner sanctum of the temple.

In my opinion, temples were created to worship God and god do not discriminate in between humans, then why do we have such prohibitions in a holy place?