Naked Hindu ascetics and pilgrims yesterday took dips in the freezing waters at the confluence of sacred rivers in northern India, in the first major bathing day of the Maha Kumbh festival, which is the largest religious congregation on Earth.
Holding tridents, swords, spears and small two-headed drums, ash-smeared Hindu holy men marched at sunrise toward the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers in the northern city of Prayagraj.
The men — with matted dreadlocks and crowns of marigolds — chanted religious slogans praising Hindu deity Lord Shiva and were escorted to the bathing site on chariots in a large procession with singing, drumming and blowing of horns.
Photo: Reuters
The Maha Kumbh festival — held every 12 years — started on Monday, with more than 15 million pilgrims bathing in the holy rivers, officials said.
Over about the next six weeks, the festival is expected to draw more than 400 million people, many of whom would take part in elaborate rituals.
Hindus believe that bathing at the confluence cleanses them of their sins and releases them from the cycle of rebirth.
The festival has its roots in a Hindu tradition that says the god Vishnu wrested a golden pitcher containing the nectar of immortality from demons. Hindus believe that a few drops fell in the cities of Prayagraj, Nasik, Ujjain and Haridwar — the four places where the Maha Kumbh festival has been held for centuries.
The Maha Kumbh rotates among these four pilgrimage sites about every three years on a date determined by the cosmic alignment of the sun, moon and Jupiter.
This year’s festival is the biggest and grandest of them all.
Authorities have built a sprawling tented city on the river banks to accommodate the holy men, pilgrims and tourists visiting the festival. The government has shelled out more than US$765 million for the event, hoping to impress India’s largely Hindu population and draw visitors from around the world.
The tent city is equipped with 3,000 kitchens, and 150,000 toilets and urinals. About 50,000 security personnel are also stationed in the city to maintain law and order, and crowd management.
Groups of Hindu ascetics have also set up sprawling camps at the site, with tens of thousands of pilgrims visiting them to hear religious discourses and attend prayers. The ascetics — called Naga Sadhus — are part of religious orders that were once mercenary armies who generally revere Lord Shiva.
Bathing takes place every day at the site, but on the most auspicious dates, Hindu ascetics charge toward the holy rivers at dawn.
Many pilgrims also stay for the entire festival, observing austerity, giving alms and bathing at sunrise every day.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS