INDIA: Thousands take a holy dip in Ganges River during India's Kumbh festival

Thousands of Hindu saints and believers, braving the morning chill, took a dip in Ganges River in northern Indian city of Allahabad on the most auspicious day of the six-week long Ardh Kumbh Festival, or Half Pitcher festival, the world's largest religious congregation. Thousands of Hindu holy men brandishing spears and tridents charged into the sacred Ganges on Monday (January 15) for a holy bath in India's northern city of Allahabad. The ritual bathing kicked off the most auspicious day yet in the six-week Ardh Kumbh Mela, or Half Pitcher festival, where tens of millions of pilgrims gather to wash away their sins and free themselves from the earthly cycle of reincarnation. Chanting battle cries to Lord Shiva, holy men dressed in saffron robes joined naked and ash-smeared "sadhus" as they ran into the river to the sound of drums for the first "Royal Bath" as dawn broke over the Ganges. "Today is the day of "amrit varsha" in which Naga holy men bathe. On this day all the sins of the world are washed away. Whoever bathes today is relieved of all his sins," said one naked holy man whose dreadlocked hair had not been cut in many years. Families from across India gathered well before dawn in Allahabad by the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and a mythical third river, the Saraswati, to bathe and speed their way to the attainment of nirvana or the afterlife. Thousands fought for space on the crowded, sloping river banks, many filling metal pots with the sacred water to take home for ill or dying relatives. Some 15,000 police stood guard and 50,000 officials kept control of crowds expected to top five million on Monday. The festival is held roughly every three years in one of four sites, with the "Maha Kumbh Mela" festival or the Great Pitcher Festival held every 12 years in Allahabad. The last gathering in 2001 drew some 50 to 70 million pilgrims.

ITN Source | January 19, 2007

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