Questions people ask before they travel

Far enough to check the schedule twice: once when you book travel and once in the week before you go. The second check matters more than the first, because festival dates, ritual days and administrative closures are usually announced late. Everything else about a temple stays put; the hours are the part that moves.

Early, at almost every temple worth queueing for. The first session of the morning is usually the longest and the least crowded relative to what it offers, and it leaves you the rest of the day if something is closed. Midday is the worst choice at any temple with a midday closure, which is most of them.

Longer than the darshan itself, which is often a matter of seconds. The time goes on the queue, the shoe stand, the security check and the walk from wherever vehicles are stopped. At a large temple on an ordinary day, allow two to three hours; on a festival day, allow the day.

Sometimes, and it depends entirely on the temple. Where the grounds are open and the sanctum queue is separate, an hour is enough to see the place properly without joining it. Where everything runs through one queue, an hour is usually not enough and you are better off returning early the next morning.

Whichever season is cool where you are going, because most of the visit is spent standing outdoors. Queues in the hot months are genuinely difficult, especially before noon at temples with no shaded waiting area. Festival seasons bring the biggest crowds of the year, which is a different consideration entirely.

Both are valid choices, but make it a choice rather than an accident. A festival is when a temple is at its most alive and its most crowded, and normal hours will not apply. If you want a quiet visit and a predictable schedule, check the temple's festival calendar and go on any other day.

At most temples, yes, and you are welcome. A small number restrict entry to Hindus, sometimes only to the sanctum and sometimes to the whole complex, and a few of the most visited temples in the world are among them. Check the temple's page before travelling, because this is the rule that most often turns a planned trip into a wasted one.

Many larger temples provide a shorter route, assistance or wheelchairs, and many older ones have steps and uneven stone that no arrangement can remove. Provision varies far more than any other facility, so where a temple publishes what it offers, its page carries it, and where it publishes nothing, contacting the temple directly is the reliable route.

At the overwhelming majority of temples, yes, and separate queues for women are common at busy ones. A very small number of temples maintain restrictions of their own. Where any restriction exists it is stated on the temple's page rather than left for you to discover at the gate.

Yes, and families do everywhere. The difficulty is practical rather than religious: long queues, no seating, hot stone floors and no space for prams. Going at the quietest hour the temple has, rather than the most auspicious one, makes a visit with small children far easier.

Yes, and earlier than you otherwise would. Assisted routes are usually staffed rather than automatic, and the staff who operate them are most available at the start of a session. Arriving early also means the shortest walk from where vehicles are allowed to stop.

Watch what people around you do and follow it, and ask a volunteer if something is unclear. Nobody expects a visitor to know a temple's specific practices, and almost everyone is willing to explain. What is not welcome is treating the place as a photo location rather than a working temple.

No. You can walk through respectfully without taking part in anything. Where prasad is handed to you, accepting it with the right hand is the ordinary courtesy. Where an offering is being made, standing quietly to one side is entirely acceptable.

Do not point your feet at the sanctum or at people seated on the floor, do not turn your back on the deity to take a photograph of yourself, do not touch statues or offerings unless invited, and do not hold up a moving queue. Those four cover almost every situation a visitor is likely to get wrong.

Nothing is required. Where a donation counter or hundi box exists, whatever you wish to give goes there, at the temple itself. Do not give money to anyone who approaches you in the queue offering faster access or a special blessing, inside or outside the gate.

No. Nothing is expected of a visitor beyond behaving as the people around you are behaving. Standing quietly, moving when the queue moves and keeping the noise down covers every temple in the world. Nobody is watching to see whether you know the words.

Almost never. Where a temple genuinely runs a paid queue, it is sold at the temple's own counter or its own website and it is stated on the temple's page here. Someone approaching you outside the gate is not that, and paying them usually buys nothing at all.