Gangotri Temple in India Requires Visitors to Drink Cow Urine

Gangotri Temple in Uttarakhand, India, has imposed new entry rules that have sparked scrutiny. Visitors are now required to drink panchgavya, a ritual concoction whose one ingredient is cow urine, before being allowed to enter the temple.

The Independent's report, quoted on Tuesday, April 21, said this rule was announced at the same time as the start of the Char Dham Yatra, a major annual Hindu pilgrimage that attracts millions of pilgrims to the four main temples in the Himalayan region, including Gangotri.

The temple management committee openly said that the rule was made to screen people who were considered non-believers. The committee chairman, Dharmendra Semwal, said this policy was aimed at preventing "non-Sanatani" and non-believers from entering the Gangotri Temple.

"People who are really believers will have no problem drinking it," Semwal told The Independent. He also said that those who entered in disguise and did not have faith in religion would not be allowed in.

The rule will be applied at the gate. Temple officials will distribute the "holy water" to pilgrims before they enter. Panchgavya consists of five elements derived from cows, namely milk, curd, ghee, honey, and cow urine.

Semwal said the new rules would restore faith and spirituality. He also said that pilgrims to Char Dham had started to arrive and so far no one had protested the obligation to drink the potion at the Gangotri Temple.

This policy comes amid the fact that many temples in India remain open to tourists and non-Hindus. However, not all take a similar stance. In March, the Badrinath-Kedarnath Temple Committee banned non-Hindus from entering the 47 temples they manage.

The rules in Gangotri have also drawn criticism. Although cows are considered sacred in Hinduism and their urine is used in purification rituals, the obligation to drink it is considered to offend Hindus who do not practice it or feel uncomfortable with it. The church committee's directive was also criticized for being considered to exclude non-Hindus and limit the religious space that has always been known to be open.

The issue of cow urine in India is also inseparable from politics. As reported by The Independent, groups close to the BJP, the Hindu nationalist party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, often promote it and say it has health benefits.

Baba Ramdev, a yoga guru who openly supports the BJP, also sells products containing cow urine through his Ayurveda brand, although health experts have repeatedly warned that such claims have not been verified. BJP cadres also often use cow urine in purification rituals. Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, the former chairman of the BJP in West Bengal once encouraged people to use it to increase immunity, which was later refuted by medical experts because it had no scientific basis.

It is not clear how the temple committees that manage the Char Dham temples will ensure that the new rules are in place when the pilgrimage season reaches its peak. Last year, Kedarnath alone was visited by 1.77 million people. Meanwhile, the four Char Dham temples received 5.1 million visitors in less than seven months in 2025, according to the state tourism department.