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Faith, madness, magic during most sacred bathing day in Hindu festival

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January 24, 2001 

ALLAHABAD-- (AP) - Millions of Hindu pilgrims are scrambling toward the Ganges to fulfill lifelong ambitions of bathing in what they consider the most sacred river on earth at the most auspicious moment.

Many walk barefoot, clutching small bags with food or clothes, eager to pray and wash away their sins during an ageless festival that is one of the world's largest religious congregations.

The planetary arrangement that regulates the Kumbh Mela festival is so rare this year that Hindu astrologers say it occurs once in 144 years.

About 10 million people visited the river banks on Monday and the numbers swelled as pilgrims poured onto the sandy shore for the most sacred bathing day of the 43-day festival.

The "Royal Bathing Day" runs from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday.

The river banks are filled with the colors and sounds of hordes of people crowding against each other, splashing the holy water onto their bodies, looking for food, shelter and lost relatives.

There are naked mendicants, with ash-smeared bodies; saffron-robed Hindu gurus; hymn-chanting women in yellow, red, and purple saris; millions of poor villagers, astrologers, faith healers, philanthropists, foreign tourists, rich Indian expatriates and hippies high on cannabis.

The sinners want salvation, the poor ask for riches, failed businessmen want back their fortunes and the childless seek children from the river they call Mother Ganga. The believers gather at the Sangam - the confluence of the dark blue waters of the Yamuna, the gray sandy currents of the Ganga and the mythical, invisible Saraswati.

Hindu pilgrims believe their sins will be washed away, and prayers answered, if they bathe at the confluence of the three sacred rivers on the most auspicious day of the most blessed festival.

Those not powered by faith are driven by curiosity.

"Every day something new stuns me here. I discover something new all the while," said John Arnett, a school teacher from Cleveland, Ohio, who was draw to the city 600 kilometers (360 miles) east of New Delhi, after reading about the Kumbh Mela on the Internet.

Arnett could not convince his wife to travel thousands of miles to join the ocean of believers, so he came alone, undeterred by delayed flights and trains, and his fear of a stampede.

"This is an experience I am going to tell my grandchildren about," he said as he posed for a photograph with a smiling Hindu nun in a saffron robe.

Hundreds of other foreign travelers roam the sprawling expanse of the festival area stuffing into their backpacks trinkets, statues, books, posters and other mementos.

American author Mark Twain visited the Kumbh festival in 1894. He wrote in a memoir: "It is wonderful. The power of faith like that can make multitudes of the old and the weak and the young and the frail to enter without hesitation or complaint."

Jim Clarke of Los Angeles first heard about the Kumbh six months ago in Malaysia, where he teaches English.

"I had been a hippy for a long time, but nothing could give me peace of mind, until I witnessed the Mahakumbh," he said, using the Hindi words that mean "Great Kumbh," as the gathering at Allahabad, every 12 years, is also called. "Now I am planning to settle in India to feed my hunger for peace and spiritualism," Clarke said.

Around him, hundreds of loudspeakers screamed an array of religious slogans, chants and songs from the colorful pavilions of different religious sects in a noisy, garbled chorus.

The Mahakumbh festival is held every 12 years, and smaller fairs are held every three years in other religious centers along the Ganga and other sacred rivers. During this time, the rivers, considered holy in Hindu tradition, are believed to be transformed into pure, nectar-like water.

Otherwise, most Indians acknowledge, the rivers are polluted with industrial and human waste and rotting corpses.

According to Hindu mythology, the Kumbh festival celebrates the victory of gods over demons in a furious battle over nectar that would give immortality. The myth says the gods retrieved the nectar by churning a massive ocean of milk.

As one of the gods fled with the pitcher of nectar across the skies, it spilled on several places along the river banks. Millions gather on the same banks during the festivals, seeking liberation from the material world and an end to the cycle of life and death.

This year's festival is considered one of the largest religious congregations in the world, spread across 1,400 hectares (3,460 acres) in an administrator's nightmare.

Each day, pilgrims use 45 million liters (12 million U.S. gallons) of water and 35,000 liters (9,250 U.S. gallons) of milk. More than 15,000 street lights dot the 80 kilometers (50 miles) of roads constructed for the festival. Thirty-five temporary power stations and 20,000 toilets have been constructed for the pilgrims.

As choppers patrol the skies above the festival, 11,000 police are deployed across the area.

The possible threat of Islamic militants has also forced the tightening of security ahead of India's Republic Day on Friday. Army soldiers carrying machine-guns peeped from behind sandbagged bunkers built along several roads.

Despite the massive preparations, thousands of poor people sleep under the open skies each night on the sandy river bank, clutching their thin, dew-soaked quilts. Those who cannot afford to buy meals, cook their own victuals in shiny aluminum utensils on the sands. Dogs wander between rows of sleeping pilgrims.

But Bishambhar Bhushan, 80 and blind, could see nothing of that as he stood in the icy waters of the river, scooped up water with folded hands, and offered it to the heavens in a centuries-old gesture.

Bhushan had waited for the moment for a decade. None of his estranged sons offered to go with him to the Kumbh, so he finally traveled two days without a ticket in a crammed train car from his village of Dhanvahi in central Madhya Pradesh state.

"I told Mother Ganga, take me across life, mother," he said, his eyelids twitching with excitement. "My life's ambition is fulfilled. I told the holy mother I had waited for a long time."

Then he clapped his hands and laughed.