why women can’t go to temple during periods?
In modern times, we regularly hear about debates on women’s rights. Now, I am not going to go into the politics of it but try to understand as to why women can’t go to temple during periods. Now there are people (and organizations) that want to eradicate what they believe to be superstitious beliefs. Then there are men who don’t know whether to support or dismiss the practices around menstruation. But what was the actual reason behind these cultural myths about menstruation?
Rituals, Rest, and the Stories We Inherited
Now menstrual traditions are not just in found in Indian subcontinent. Cultural myths around menstruation are found all over. Many societies code menstruation as a different state: neither ‘bad’ nor ‘good’, but limiting – life potential flowing out and cultures respond with distance, rules, or reverence.
- In Judaism, niddah law treats a menstruant as ritually impure for a period, restricting sex and certain holy places. The point is ritual status, not moral stigma.
- Zoroastrian fire temples hold strict rules around menstruation near consecrated fire -again about preserving a ritual field, not condemning the person.
- Similar ‘keep sacred space distinct’ instincts appear in Christianity and Islam in various historical codes.
- Hinduism, with its many faces, both restricts and celebrates menstruation – temples like Kāmākhyā honour it openly during Ambubachi Mela.
The ‘why’ ranges from written rules to local guru lineages to simple folk custom. So the story isn’t one single “thou shalt not.” It’s a tapestry of logics: purity, energy, labour, and care — sometimes honour, sometimes exclusion. On closer inspection, we see two broad aspects:
- Practical (rest, hygiene, labour)
- Subtle (energetics, prāṇa, purity).
I am going to look at them from the latter – the subtle. This is an attempt to revive something that got lost. Something that none of these practices were originally meant to suppress.
The Energetic reasons for why women can’t go to temple during periods
All therapies that take life energy (Chi, Prana etc.) into account – Yoga, Ayurveda, TCM and Reiki etc. believe that life force is constantly on the move. And this movement should never be forced, lest the body takes on disease. Now let us see the correlation between menstrual energy and prana.
As per Yoga, there are five types of Vayus, each with a separate but crucial function. Lets see the relation between menstrual energy and prana. During menstruation, the apāna vāyu (the downward flowing, releasing wind) is dominant. By contrast, most rituals (mantras, prayer, pranayama etc) try to lift energy upward (udāna/prāṇa vayu). The caution, in some lineages, isn’t about being ‘dirty’. It’s about dissonance: why force the river upstream when it’s flowing down?
Similarly, old-world kitchens were smoky, labor-heavy, and hot; rest during heavy flow protected apāna’s downward movement and also gave women rest from physically taxing chores. (In pre-sanitary-pad eras, it was hygienic, too.) So you see, the traditional approach was not to let the menstrual energy and prana, clash.
Beyond 'Impure'
So much of our language around menstruation carries sting.
Impure. Untouchable. Not fit.
But in several Śākta and Tantric spaces, menstrual blood is not shame – it is shakti. They treat menstrual blood as potent, even sacred, while still setting ritual boundaries. For them, the word ‘ashauch’ (ritual impurity) often just means a change of ritual state and not sin. Think fasting and feasting. Sleeping and waking. Different rhythms need different practices.
Where It Got Tender (and Tricky)
Of course, what may have begun as care slowly hardened into control. In a world that didn’t normally allow women to rest, elders took over the hearth. She didn’t fetch water or wood! In agrarian life, that’s radical kindness.
The problem arose when care calcified into control. when accommodation hardened into exclusion. A ‘please rest’ became a ‘you must not’. A sacred pause being wielded as stigma. It turned into conformity as to why women can’t go to temple during periods. You see this tension today in debates like Sabarimala, where courts, temples, and women themselves wrestle with meaning. Resulting in a clash between menstruation and temples!
So perhaps the real question isn’t should you go or not go? But, is this boundary serving your wellbeing, or policing your body?
A Gentle Middle Way
If you resonate with the energetic view, here’s a middle path that honors both body and bhakti:
Lean into release. Restorative yoga, journaling, soft mantra, not forceful breathwork or bandhas. (Classic texts also caution against inversions in those days; modern yoga debates this, but the apāna logic remains.)
Choose intimacy. Most temples are ‘high voltage’, And menstruation and temples don’t mingle normally. But if you feel the urge, sit at your home shrine. Offer a flower, hum a chant, simply listen. (Although some home shrines are also high energy places).
Rest the belly: Modern appliances do make it easier, but the principle – give the pelvis a break- still holds. The world won’t fall apart if someone else stirs the pot.
Reframe words. Not ‘impure’, just a different state of being. Your state is cyclic, not defective.
Closing
Why women can’t go to temple during periods? In a nutshell, Menstruation is release. A time when apāna flows down, when the body whispers let go. The temple rules, the kitchen rules, in their kindest form, were ways of saying: don’t fight the river.
The trouble came when those whispers turned into walls. Perhaps the invitation now is to hold the respect, keep the rest, but drop the shame.
Reading Further
Why taboos cluster at boundaries: Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Āyurveda on rājāsvālā paricaryā (menstrual guidelines) and apāna vāyu. Wisdom Library
Cross-cultural ritual status: Jewish niddah; Zoroastrian fire-temple rules. JWAThe TorahTalmudology
Contemporary context and rights debates (e.g., Sabarimala). Axios