"Perhaps the largest single gathering of humans ever." cnn

NOTE: While this event is held periodically, this year is apparently different because it represents the end of the Hindu 'Age of Kali'.

Mass bath marks Hindu festival climax

Seventy million people are expected to attend the Kumbh Mela festival
January 14, 2001
Web posted at: 6:59 PM HKT (1059 GMT)

ALLAHABAD, India -- Eight million Hindu pilgrims are expected to bathe in the River Ganges on Sunday as the massive Kumbh Mela festival reaches a climax.

Amid the pulse of beating drums and a swirl of saffron robes, hordes of ash-smeared men were jostling to take a dip in the revered River Ganges at its intersection with two other mythical rivers.

Sunday -- known as Royal Bath Day -- is the second of six astrologically auspicious bathing days during the six-week festival.

The festival is expected to draw 70 million people -- perhaps the largest single gathering of humans ever.

Organisers of the Kumbh Mela in the northern city of Allahabad, which takes place once every 12 years, said pilgrims believe bathing would result in wealth, fertility and absolution of their sins.

A torrent of people headed towards the river through the night as thousands of loudspeakers pounded out sacred music between commercials, including one which advertised cattle insurance.

By 8:30 a.m. (0300 GMT), officials at the lost-and-found centre had called out the names of more than 1,300 men, women and children who had gone missing in the milling masses.

Thousands upon thousands of people were backed up for at least half a kilometre (0.31 mile) on the sandy flood plain waiting for their turn to bathe.

A man wearing just his underpants helped lift a friend with withered legs into the water. A family did all it could to keep an old man warm as he shook uncontrollably with cold and puffed furiously on a cigarette.

All eyes, though, were on the "saints" and sadhus whose 13 akharas and retinues of disciples had agreed -- after some dispute -- on a strict sequence for their arrival at an enclosed bathing area.

They came in raucous processions led by brass bands or bagpipers and their leaders sat on dazzling tinsel-strewn thrones which were perched on trailers and pulled along by tractors.

'This moment is fantastic'
Many of the naked nagas, the most ferocious and exotic of the sadhus, waved sticks threateningly at photographers and camera crews as they hurtled down to the river.

A Hindu woman offers prayers at the Kumbh fair in Allahabad
Swami, a saffron-clad yogi who lives in Vienna, led a group of mostly-European followers down to the river in the gloom.

They were not the only foreigners there.

An Australian called Ian who said he had not come with an akhara but "with God alone" was ecstatic as he toweled himself down. "It feels great. This moment is fantastic," he said.

Allahabad is one of four spots where Garuda, the winged steed of the god Vishnu, is believed to have rested during a 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.

Sunday's big bathing day was the most severe test yet for the planning which has gone into crowd control at a festival. The Kumbh Mela has a history of fatal stampedes.

Officials overseeing the event said by midday some four million believers had taken a dip.

Mela Commissioner Sadakant, who stood unruffled on the riverbank as a frail tangerine-coloured sun rose in the sky, said everything had gone smoothly so far.

Reuters contributed to this report.