Why Temple Entry was banned to Certain Communities

Do you think these temples are constructed by Brahmins or Other so called upper classes?

No.

It is constructed by all classes- locals and expert Shilpis.

That means the “not allowing certain people has come in between”

When?

When Tamil country is in chaos- exactly end of 17th century onwards.

There were lot of players - family feuds of rulers, Marathas, Nawabs, Nizams, Portuguese, Dutch, French and British.

All around- every player had spies, they want to loot treasures, local individuals were targeted. Rulers, temple authorities had suspicion - but they could not single out. This resulted into mass ban of communities.

Normally, these bans are lifted whenever normalcy return. But unfortunately, that peace never happened, gone into the hands of European invaders.

On the otherday, I saw an eminent NRI person on social media dragged the issue of ‘banning his community to tiruchendur temple’. I do not know mentioning the community here is appropriate.

I am also completely against ‘not allowing’ anyone by birth. But only clarify the reason in that timeline.

Here is the Tiruchendur episode: of Dutch fortifying the temple and stealing the idol for money.

Kayalpattinum was the trade center then with Dutch and Portuguese. Dutch had a base at Ceylon. Portugese and Dutch were at Kayalpattinam, Tuticorin for the trading spices to Europe.

One incident to remember and one of its kind is that Dutch occupied the temple of Tiruchendur at a time when the king was in war with Bijapur Sultan and looted the treasures.

When the king returned victorious, Dutch try to set fire the temple and moved to Ceylon along with the deity idol and treasures. They demanded 100000 reals for the idol. Travancore king was ready to bid for the idol. He was requested not to buy the idol.

Madurai King managed to get the idol by warning and attacking the island region with the help of Kandy kings.

After getting the idol, the investigations done by Tinnevely officials revealed that the details of treasures were taken by spies from toddy shops. Now the ruling is that not allowing the people involved in toddy making and selling.

Normally, these bans are lifted whenever normalcy return. But unfortunately, that peace never happened, gone into the hands of otherEuropean invaders.

Only, time need to be blamed and there were our own people, helped the invaders- both Brahmins or others. Some did help, others suffered because of them.