The temple crawling with black rats
A religious and tourist destination, India’s Karni Mata Temple is a site of both reverence and revulsion. That’s because the famous Hindu temple is crawling with thousands of rodents.
The Temple of Rats, located deep in Rajasthan’s Thar desert, houses some 20,000 black rats that are free to roam the place of worship freely. Thousands of religious pilgrims, as well as curious tourists, visit the temple every year, eager for the blessings of the holy rats.
According to local legend, when the stepson of Hindu deity Karni Mata drowned in a pond, Karni Mata asked the death god Yama to revive him. Yama eventually relented, but only under the condition that the stepson, and all of his caste, be reincarnated as rats.
Known as “little children” by worshippers and temple caretakers, the rats are fed milk, grains, coconut shells and specially prepared sweets by temple caretakers and worshippers. Because food that the rats have nibbled is said to bring good fortune, some religious pilgrims even partake of the leftovers.
“It’s quite the experience to walk through a temple with rats scuttling around as free as can be, and eating out of the same offerings that you're given back to consume,” wrote Prayash Giria.