Mumbadevi Temple to Introduce Dress Code Following Siddhivinayak’s Lead | Vijay Gohil
Mumbai: After Mumbai’s most visited temple, the Siddhivinayak shrine at Prabhadevi, announced a dress code on January 28 for visiting devotees, including a ban on ripped denim clothes and body-revealing dresses, another major temple, Mumbadevi, which lends its name to the city, said it will implement a similar dress code.
Apart from Indian devotees, Mumbadevi temple gets a lot of foreign tourists who make the temple a part of their Mumbai itinerary. “We have no system to regulate the clothes worn by visitors and devotees, but since Siddhivinayak has decided to have a dress code we will work on one,” said Hemant Jadhav, manager. “We will have a discussion with our trustees and decide. We get foreign visitors who may not be appropriately dressed for a temple visit.”
Other temple trusts said they did not see a need for a dress code for devotees. Mukesh Kanojia of Babulnath, a Lord Shiva shrine near Chowpatty, said, “Most devotees follow the decorum for their attire. We will make a decision on a dress code if it is needed later.”
Temples run by ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) do not insist on dress etiquette. Keshav Chandra Prabhu, spokesperson for the Girgaon Chowpatty temple, said they did not insist on a dress code.
“The dress code at Siddhivinayak temple is a good initiative; some temples in the south have a strict code and insist that male devotees wear dhotis and women wear Indian clothes. We do not even prohibit photography in our temples, unlike other shrines. We only discourage devotees from taking selfies with images of the lord,” said Prabhu.
Siddhivinayak’s announcement of a dress code is not the first time the temple has issued directives on the clothes that visiting devotees should wear. In Mumbai, churches have also periodically issued rules on the attire worn at religious services.
In July 2005, the then Archbishop of Bombay, Cardinal Ivan Dias, announced a dress code for its over five lakh members, saying that the term ‘dressed in their Sunday best’ was practiced in the extreme with worshippers wearing casual clothes unbecoming of the sacred dignity of the church.
Hindu temples have been issuing regular directives on what should be the appropriate dress code for entry into temples. In December 2024, the Banke Bihari Mandir in Mathura asked devotees not to wear mini skirts, torn jeans, shorts, night suits, and even leather belts.
Earlier, the Shree Ladli Maharaj temple in Barsana prohibited certain clothing. Barsana’s Radharani temple in Barsana bars shorts and mini skirts inside its premises. Agra’s Kailash temple requires women to wear sarees or salwar kurta and men to wear dhoti or kurta pajama.
Some temples in South India have even more stringent dress codes. Most Kerala temples require men to remove shirts before entering temples. The rule started a controversy in December 2024, when the head of the Shivgiri Mutt, a religious institution run by the OBC Ezhava/Thiyya community, accused temples of enforcing this rule to find out whether male devotees were wearing a sacred thread or poonool over their chests – a practice followed by some upper castes.
