Record 120 million pilgrims as Kumbh Mela festival ends
INDIA: A record 120 million pilgrims washed away their sins
with plunges in an Indian holy river during the world's biggest
religious festival set to end Sunday, officials said.
The two-month-long Kumbh Mela Hindu festival celebrated every 12
years at the conjunction of two sacred rivers on the outskirts of the
northern Indian city of Allahabad drew massive crowds of Hindu devotees,
ascetics and foreign tourists. “Over 60 million people attended the
festival in 2001 and this time we believe 120 million people have
participated,” festival chief Mani Prasad Mishra told AFP late on
Saturday.
The festival involves crowd management on a jaw-dropping scale and
despite all the precautions was hit by tragedy last month when a
stampede at a train station in Allahabad killed 36 pilgrims who were
returning from the festival. Assorted dreadlocked, naked holy men,
priests and self-proclaimed saints from all over the country assembled
for the spectacle that offers a rare glimpse of the dizzying range of
Indian spiritualism.
Despite the hardships of waking early, plunging into the polluted
river water and the relentless crush of the crowds, pilgrims from all
over the world described feeling spiritually uplifted and amazed by the
scale of the event.
“There is a sense of relief because the festival finally is coming to
an end. Most of the pilgrims have returned back home,” said Mishra.
He said the job of dismantling the infrastructure that sprawled over
5,000 acres (2,000 hectares) to house the pilgrims had already begun.
“We built a tent city to celebrate the Kumbh Mela and now we are
tearing it down,” he said.
AFP |