Source: Reuters
By Alasdair Pal
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Spirituality, politics and tourism: welcome to the Kumbh Mela, the world’s largest gathering of humanity, that begins next month in India.
Labourers work on an under-construction pontoon bridge spanning the river Ganga ahead of the “Kumbh Mela”, or the Pitcher Festival, in Allahabad, India, November 20, 2018. REUTERS/Jitendra Prakash
During the Kumbh Mela, to be held in Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh, millions of pilgrims including naked, ash-smeared ascetics, will bathe at the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna, and a mythical third river, the Saraswati.
Devout Hindus believe that bathing in the waters of the Ganges absolves people of sins and bathing at the time of the Kumbh brings salvation from the cycle of life and death.
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