Millions of Hindu devotees are bathing in sacred waters as the world’s biggest religious gathering begins in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
Over the next six weeks, a staggering 400 million people are expected to attend the Maha Kumbh Mela, or the festival of the Sacred Pitcher, on the riverbanks in the city of Prayagraj. Every 12 years the festival carries the prefix “Maha,” which means great, as it’s the largest gathering of the Kumbh Mela that’s held every three years in one of four cities.
In Prayagraj, followers will bathe in the Triveni Sangam, the confluence of three holy rivers – the Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati – to purify their sins and take another step closer to “spiritual liberation.”
The Kumbh draws upon Hindu mythology and the legend of demons and gods fighting over a pitcher containing the elixir of immortality. During the fight, four drops from the pitcher fell on Earth, in Prayagraj, Nashik, Haridwar and Ujjain, which host the festival in rotation. The gathering is particularly well-known for attracting large crowds of Hindu holy men, known as sadhus, who travel from across the country. Sadhus are ascetics who have renounced worldly goods and life and are famous for their dreadlocks, ash covered bodies as well as their bright – and at times minimal – clothing.
On Tuesday morning, scores of sparsely clad sadhus bathed in the waters as part of a key moment at the start of the festival. Uttar Pradesh’s Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said late Tuesday that more than 35 million people had “earned the holy benefit of bathing in the uninterrupted and clean Triveni,” or the confluence of the rivers, over the course of the day.
Indian Prime Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Narendra Modi has invited people from all over the world to attend the festival, recognized by UNESCO in 2017 as an “intangible cultural heritage of humanity.”Authorities are promoting the event not just as a religious gathering but a cultural spectacle that in the past has attracted both Bollywood and Hollywood stars. Around 160,000 tents, 150,000 toilets and a 776-mile (1,249-kilometer) drinking water pipeline have been installed at a temporary tent city covering 4,000 hectares, roughly the size of 7,500 football fields.
In 2013, dozens of people were killed and injured in a crowd crush at a railway station as pilgrims gathered in the city. Such deadly incidents at religious gatherings in India are not uncommon, often highlighting a lack of adequate crowd control and safety measures. This year, officials say extra safety measures have been put in place in Prayagraj to protect visitors, including a security ring with checkpoints around the city staffed by more than 1,000 police officers.
Source: Here
