Saturday January 13 11:25 AM ET
Pilgrims Flood Into Holy Indian City to Bathe

By John Chalmers

ALLAHABAD, India (Reuters) - A torrent of pilgrims from far and wide poured into India's giant
Hindu festival on Saturday, the eve of the most auspicious day yet in what has been billed as the
largest-ever gathering of human beings.

Organizers of the Maha Kumbh Mela (Grand Pitcher Festival) said they expected some eight
million people to take a sin-cleansing bath in the holy river Ganges, which meets the Yamuna and
a third, mythical river at a point known as the ''sangam'' in the northern city of Allahabad.

The ``Royal Bath'' day will begin about one hour before dawn, with holy men, or sadhus, taking

turns to immerse themselves in India's most revered river at the confluence point.

The rest will jostle for positions on the bathing ``ghats,'' putting the authorities' elaborate crowd
control plans to their most severe test yet.

``All the arrangements are complete for tomorrow's Royal Bath,'' Divisional Commissioner in
charge of the fair Sadakant told a news conference, adding a dispute between rival sadhu
brotherhoods over the sequence of bathing had been resolved.

The sadhus, many of them ash-smeared naked ascetics, who normally live in remote isolation
existing on roots and herbs, will arrive in raucous processions at the sangam carrying their leaders
aloft on fabulously decorated palanquins.

More than one million sadhus, gurus and their devotees have already camped out on the broad
sandy flood plains of the river in a kaleidoscopic township of pavilion tents which sprang to life as
the 42-day festival got under way earlier in the week.

Astrologers Decide Date

Allahabad, in the Hindi-speaking heartland of Uttar Pradesh, is one of four spots where Garuda,
the winged steed of the Hindu god Vishnu, is believed to have rested during a titanic battle with
demons over a pitcher of divine nectar of immortality.

Garuda's flight lasted 12 divine days, or 12 years of mortal time, so the Kumbh Mela is celebrated at
each city, alternating between each every three years. Hindus consider the festival at Allahabad as
the holiest of the four.

Astrologers calculate auspicious days for bathing at the sangam, according to the position of the
stars and planets. On Sunday, the sun enters the Capricorn constellation.

More than 20,000 police personnel are deployed in the festival area, which sprawls across 1,396
hectares (3,450 acres).

Special electricity sub-stations have been built, 20,000 toilets and urinals have been installed and
more than 8,000 sweepers have been put to work to deal with the debris of a crowd which,
cumulatively, could total some 70 million by the time festivities end next month.

Traffic was restricted from early evening on Saturday to prevent bottlenecks in the throng of
pilgrims, thousands of whom will walk to the river in the dead of night and immerse themselves in
the chilly water before sunrise.

D.P. Dubey, a renowned Indian history scholar, wrote in a recent book on the Kumbh Mela that the
festival has had a history of tragedy dating back to 1820, when 430 people were crushed to death in a
crowd of frenzied pilgrims.

About 300 were trampled to death in the muddy ground in Allahabad in 1954 and 40 were killed in a
stampede at the holy city of Haridwar in 1986.

``The untold tremendous faith that attracts people for generations, without any propaganda or
publicity, all at one time, to the sacred place is still the vital strength of religious belief and
practice,'' he wrote.

Sewage-Free Bath

Thousands of ghostly silhouettes milled around by the Ganges in the fog at dawn on Saturday,
washing themselves despite the cold, and collecting water for cooking and drinking, unmindful of
the pollution that plagues India's most sacred river.

Uttar Pradesh Minister for Urban Development Lalji Tandon told reporters the authorities had
diverted city sewage that normally drains into the river to a place six km (3.5 miles) downstream to
ensure that pilgrims had a pollution-free dip.

``The pollution prevention board has carried out the necessary tests and found the pollution level to
be minimal,'' he said. ``The river is absolutely fit for bathing.''

Lines of beggars, mostly women and children sitting on mats or straw with rough blankets
wrapped around them, stretched into the gloomy distance beside the river.

At the other end of the social scale, visitors staying at a plush colony of Swiss-style cottage tents set
up by the international travel agency Cox & Kings faced uncertainty after the Allahabad High Court
ordered that it be moved to an area outside the inner boundary of the mela.

Sadhus had protested against the luxury tents, saying they violated the sacred status of the festival.