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Some five million Hindu devotees plunged into the chilly waters of the Ganges yesterday😲😲, despite concerns that Hinduism's sacred river had become too polluted to bathe in safely.🤢
Clutching tridents, chanting mantras and shouting the battle cries of Lord Shiva, ordinary devotees and ash-clad sadhus, or holy men, entered the river at Allahabad, in Uttar Pradesh during the Ardh Kumbh festival.😳
Some 70 million pilgrims will attend the three-month festival but yesterday was the single biggest bathing day after astrologers declared it a particularly auspicious "royal bathing day".😛
The festival, a smaller version of the Kumbh Mela which takes place every 12 years, has been marred by controversy over the Indian government's failure to tackle pollution levels in the river.
Several sadhus threatened to drown themselves😕 in protest at the "ill treatment of the Ganges, our sacred mother" which remains heavily polluted by chemicals, farm pesticides and sewage despite ?150 million of government spending since 1987.
Confrontation was averted, however, when the local government "flushed" the river with millions of gallons fresh water from a dam upstream.
For pilgrims, the "holy dip" is the fulfilment of a lifelong spiritual ambition and many have braved cold night temperatures by sleeping in the open for a chance to enter the swirling waters at dawn.😛
"I am here to wash away my sins - the sins I accumulated in my life so that I can die as a pious soul," said Hari Om Sharma, 68, from Bihar.😛😛
Clutching tridents, chanting mantras and shouting the battle cries of Lord Shiva, ordinary devotees and ash-clad sadhus, or holy men, entered the river at Allahabad, in Uttar Pradesh during the Ardh Kumbh festival.😳
Some 70 million pilgrims will attend the three-month festival but yesterday was the single biggest bathing day after astrologers declared it a particularly auspicious "royal bathing day".😛
The festival, a smaller version of the Kumbh Mela which takes place every 12 years, has been marred by controversy over the Indian government's failure to tackle pollution levels in the river.
Several sadhus threatened to drown themselves😕 in protest at the "ill treatment of the Ganges, our sacred mother" which remains heavily polluted by chemicals, farm pesticides and sewage despite ?150 million of government spending since 1987.
Confrontation was averted, however, when the local government "flushed" the river with millions of gallons fresh water from a dam upstream.
For pilgrims, the "holy dip" is the fulfilment of a lifelong spiritual ambition and many have braved cold night temperatures by sleeping in the open for a chance to enter the swirling waters at dawn.😛
"I am here to wash away my sins - the sins I accumulated in my life so that I can die as a pious soul," said Hari Om Sharma, 68, from Bihar.😛😛
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