Author: AFP
Publication: Sify.com
Date: April 28, 2010
URL: http://sify.com/news/80-million-attended-India-s-Ganges-festival-organisers-news-National-ke2rEcfhddh.html
About 80 million people bathed in the river
Ganges in northern India during the Kumbh Mela festival that lasted 104 days,
organisers said on Wednesday as the event drew to a close.
The Kumbh Mela, which is billed as the largest
festival on Earth, attracts Hindus from across the country to the sacred water
that they believe washes away their sins and frees them from the cycle of
life and rebirth.
The Ganges is especially auspicious during
the Kumbh Mela, which is held every three years and rotates among four Indian
cities.
"Our confirmed total is 80 million bathers
along the 15-kilometre (nine-mile) stretch of the river," Ashok Sharma,
the Mela's senior press official, told AFP from Haridwar, this year's venue.
"The numbers were even bigger than we
expected, but the event generally passed off safely due to excellent organisation."
He said the only accident that marred the
festival was when a car driven by sadhus (holy men) hit and killed two pilgrims,
and triggered a stampede in which seven other people died.
The Kumbh Mela ("Pitcher Festival")
peaks on three major bathing days when naked, ash-smeared sadhus charge into
the water at a time decreed by astrologers.
The spot where they bathe is where the river
is said to leave the Himalayan mountains and start its long journey across
the plains of northern India before flowing into the Bay of Bengal.
It is also where, in Hindu mythology, a few
drops from a pitcher containing the nectar of immortality fell during a fight
between gods and demons.
The other drops fell at Allahabad, Nasik and
Ujjain -- the other Kumbh Mela cities.
The attendance figures are impossible to verify
and some observers suggest they are exaggerated by the host city, but previous
Kumbh Mela events are thought to have attracted similar numbers.
