The exclusion of women is the taboo of prohibition for women（女人禁制）to climb the sacred mountains, entering the sacred places of temples and shrines, and participation in festivals and Buddhist rituals. The reason of taboo is the pollution of women．In modern times, such practice is regarded as discrimination against women, denounced as violating the gender equality, and argued against respect for human rights due to contempt for women and disdain for women.
However, the exclusion of women for the sacred places goes back to the pre-modern period, there is a big disconnection from modern thinking, and the context is also very different from the pre-modern period.
This paper consists four parts. At first, we examine the taboo for women and the liminal borders based on historical sources, and presents hypotheses regarding the origin of taboo. The second discusses the change in women's liminal borders（女人結界）from temporary regulation to permanent regulation on the pollution of women, from a view of women's inferiority to a view of women's sins. The big change has been the introducing of the sutra called Ketsubonkyō（血盆経）to stress the pollution of women. Third, we will discuss the creation of "boundary culture" through the theatricalization of women's prohibition and the movement of women around liminal boundaries. Fourthly, regarding modern times, we will discuss the regional development of the exclusion of women and the process leading to the lifting of the ban, and consider "heritage" such as registration of mountain sacred sites as World Heritage Sites and Japanese Heritage Sites.
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