Kerala visiting religious centres · Visiting religious centres in Kerala
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Visiting religious centres in Kerala
Visiting religious centres in Kerala
Kerala is one of the places where multiple religions exist in great harmony. This is achieved by one respecting the customs and rituals of other religions. A visit to these shrines is necessary to understand the breadth of cultural influences in the state.
In some Hindu temples non-Hindus are not allowed enter the shrines. It is best to ask someone at the temple. Many are happy to let you in as long as the usual rules of the temple are observed. However, photography inside the temple is a strict no-no.
Also for male visitors at many places inside a temple, dress code is traditional mundu without a shirt - the no-shirt rule will be enforced even if the mundu rule is not. The best thing to do is to watch what others are doing and follow. You are also expected to take off your footwear outside the temple. Usually there are no locker facilities, cheap footwear is best.
For females any non-exposed dress, preferably not shirts and trousers. Tidiness and personal hygiene is very important while entering into temples. A bath at morning is required for those entering into temple. Women who are in "menses", must refrain entering into temple for 7 days after the first sign of menses. Likewise its a ritual to refrain entering into temple, if any close maternal relative dies for a period of 16 days as a token of mourning. Same, in case of birth of any newborn which prohibits maternal relatives refraining from entering the temple for a period of 11 days since the birth of the newborn.
There are exceptions to these rules. For example everybody is welcome at Adhi Shankaracharya's temple. At Shabarimala any male that has performed a set of pre-defined rituals is welcome, but females are not. Women between the ages of 10 and 50 are not allowed to enter the temple, since the story attributed to Ayyappa prohibits the entry of the women in the menstrual age group.
At a Muslim mosque females have some restrictions. Some mosques do-not allow females inside and in those which allows, ladies must dress in absolute modesty. They must wear fully covering dress and cover their head with a shawl or scarf. No photography or any electronic equipments such as Ipods, FM players or Mobiles etc are allowed inside.
At Christian churches usually men sit to the left of the aisle and women to the right. Some of the more traditional churches don't even have pews; you'll have to stand. Ladies must cover their head with a shawl or scarf during the mass.
The synagogue at Kochi is not open to non-Jews on Saturdays. And on other days, visitors need to dress with modesty. Sleeveless tops, short trousers etc are not permitted to wear while visiting synagogue.
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Kerala Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.