A crew He bathed on Monday in sacred waters in it north of India at the beginning of the, presented as the largest congregation in the world with a forecast of 400 million pilgrims in six weeks.
Before sunrise, the crowd of faithful went in to wash away your sins in the cold waters where the sacred rivers Ganges and Yamuna with the mythical Sarasvati riverwhich appears in ancient scriptures.
In the pre-dawn gloom, pilgrims emerged on the banks of the rivers to start bathing in the cold waters. “I feel enormous joy,” said Surmila Devi, 45. “For me it’s like bathing in nectar,” he added.
“Divine occasion”
“For a Hindu, it’s an occasion you can’t miss,” said Reena Rai, a 38-year-old businesswoman from the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, a thousand kilometers from Prayagrajwhere the rite takes place.
Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi described it as a “divine occasion” to bring together “countless numbers of people in a sacred confluence of faith, devotion and culture.”
Organized every twelve yearsthis year’s edition that will last until February 26 is announced as the one for all records. The last religious celebrations organized in 2019 in that city, formerly known as Allahabad, gathered 240 million faithful, according to the government. For comparison, the great annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca brought together 1.8 million believers in 2024.
Great challenge
Even for the most populous country in the world with 1.4 billion inhabitants, relatively accustomed to the logistics of massive celebrationshosting the equivalent of the population of the United States and Canada is a major challenge. The organizers installed 150,000 bathrooms, 68,000 streetlights and a tent city on an area equivalent to two-thirds of the New York island of Manhattan. A crowd mainly from India but also from abroad already took their positions over the weekend.
Jaishree ben Shahtilal took a three-day bus trip to arrive from the western state of Gujarat. “I wait to bathe in the sacred river for a long time,” said the woman who made the journey with her neighbors. To emphasize her “Hindu culture,” Sonali Bandhyopadhya did not hesitate to travel from Nevada, in the western United States.
elephant entourages
Despite the rain, bathers began to occupy the banks of the rivers on Sunday amid the ringing of drums, elephant entourages and tractors loaded with statues of Hindu deities. In the middle of the waters, monks dressed in orange robes and ascetics with bodies blackened by ashes distributed blessings.
The most impatient devotees did not wait for the official start of the celebrations at dawn on Monday to immerse themselves in the cold sacred waters. “Once you’re in the water, you don’t feel the cold anymore,” said Chandrakant Nagve Patel, 56. “It’s like I’m one with God,” he added.
Los Hindus They believe that immersing themselves in those waters during the Kumbh Mela cleanses sins and brings salvation. The festival is based on a mythological battle between gods and demons to control a jar with the nectar of immortality.
Confluence between rivers
Hundreds of boats are prepared for those who are not satisfied with bathing on the shore, but want to go to the exact point of the supposed confluence between the three rivers, the two real ones and the third mythical.
Indian police deployed significant troops to ensure “maximum security” for the pilgrims, a spokesman said.
Posters honoring Prime Minister Modi, who should participate in the rituals, are also omnipresent in the alleys of Prayagraj.
In 2017, the Kumbh Mela was inscribed on the list of UNESCO Intangible Heritagewho described it as “the largest peaceful gathering of pilgrims in the world.”
