The Ganges Festival at the Ganges River

The Kumbh Mela is a traditional Indian religious festival that has been celebrated for more than 1,300 years. Legend has it that the gods fought with demons to protect a large pot that could make people immortal. Later, the son of the great god Indra managed to steal back the pot, but on the way back, accidentally spilled four drops of nectar, which formed the four holy places along the Ganges River. Therefore, the Ganges festival is also known as the "Great Pot Festival".

Every 12 years, Hindus take turns to hold ceremonies at the four holy places.

To the casual observer, it all seems like a miracle. What is the power that brings the faithful to this great river, which has been a constant source of renewal for centuries, to realize the sacredness and shock it brings to the human heart?

People who come on pilgrimage have set up camp by the Ganges. Early in the morning, people on the face of the dhan red, smeared with incense ash, hands together as a prayer, old and young arrived at the river bank. The water in the Ganges at this time is freezing cold, but the congregation believes that the cold will wash away their sins and speed up the process of reincarnation.

Men go into the water almost naked, despite the cold; women wear only their undergarments. When young children cry and refuse to go down, their mothers take a copper pot of river water and rinse it over the child's head, then carry the child and press it into the river. For some children, this may be the first holy bath of their lives, and only by facing it bravely can they become a bona fide Hindu.

The sun has risen fully from the east, the river is golden and the banks are crowded. In fact, one only has to look out from the highway bridge at the Ganges to see an endless array of tents stretching into the distance. The tiny city of Allahabad, with a population of just 700,000, has the daunting task of hosting 70 million pilgrims in six weeks.

To ensure the success of the conference, the local government set up 27 pontoon bridges, more than 500,000 tents, more than 20,000 temporary toilets, and arranged for more than 8,000 cleaning staff to work at full capacity. Even so, with each person occupying an area of 1 square meter of the riverbank, only 25,000 people can bathe in the water for one minute at a time, and then they have to change shifts in a hurry.

There are also many ascetics, satgurus, or saints, and yogis practicing in the Himalayas who come here during the conference. In addition to bathing in the Ganges, they organize philosophical debates, prayer meetings and festivals.

Every evening, the devotees walk towards the riverside altar to the sound of the sacred bell. Holding green smoke and incense in their hands, people sing dirges and wait for a great sacrifice that has been going on for thousands of years, rain or shine. And the Brahmin priests, dressed in gold and red, holding high the sacred fire, walked up to the altar with elegant steps under the praying eyes of the crowds ...... As the sun's last glimmering light disappeared in the western sky, the bank gradually became brilliantly illuminated. The sacred bells of the sacrifice on the main pier had been rung, and once more the crowds continued to pour in. The ringing of the sacrificial bells became more and more urgent, and the crowd of worshippers grew larger and larger. Accompanied by the sacrificial drums, the lead singers and musicians chanting the sutra are already in place. Slowly, the melodious singing comes out of the loudspeakers, and 14 handsome young Brahmin priests walk up to the altar.

Led by the chief priest, the priests stood in a line facing the Ganges River, singing chants and clapping to the music. Smoke rises around the altar as the noble priests gradually raise the sacred fire that was handed down 6,000 years ago. The devotees sing along, and eventually all are immersed in a boundless atmosphere of sanctity and majesty. From the Bay of Bengal to Kolkata, the Ganges journey was a successful one. Whether you are looking up at the holy mountain of Ganges, the source of the Ganges, or meeting the occasional pilgrims, you can feel the great difference of civilization at every moment.

To many, the Ganges is almost synonymous with "pollution" and "filth". On weekdays, you can always see Indian "untouchables" hands stirring baskets of cow dung into the Ganges. Even so, Indians still use the Ganges water to brush their teeth and wash their faces, bathe and purify their bodies, but the floating garbage on the surface of the river, rotting corpses turn a blind eye to ...... Here, the dirtiest environment and the most holy heart into one, it is puzzling and emotional.

The Ganges festival is even more of a spiritual miracle. A devotee told me, "The river sacrifice comes from the heart and with devotion, even if it is simple, the almighty Ganges feels it." The lengthy ritual lasts from the early night until the middle of the night, and as the sacred fire of the river festival fades, the incense disperses, the bells die down, the singing stops, and the people retire in bliss. The great Ganges River in the calm, peacefully waiting for the dawn of another festival. The Ganges River is the holy river in the minds of Hindus, the Ganges River water can be cleansed of sin and trouble, and thus go to the Ganges River to take a big bath is the Hindus are the most eager and enjoyable thing. The grandest bath should be said to be the Hindu Ganesha temple fair, each time to participate in the bathing of tens of millions of people, every twelve years alternately held in various holy places, so it is not easy to come across a time. However, the entire Ganges River, whether in the upper reaches, middle reaches, or lower reaches, no matter in the spring, summer, fall and winter, there are always Hindus bathing all day long. But the most spectacular of all is the morning bath of the Ganges at Varanasi, to which pilgrims and sightseers come in large part.

Varanasi is the largest holy city on the banks of the Ganges, and the view from its banks is spectacular. The bank of the Ganges at Varanasi is 6.7km long and has 64 jetties, locally known as 'khads'. It is said that these khads are built by devout Hindus, and the more they are built, the more good they do. The most fascinating thing is to rent a flat boat for a few dozen rupees and float towards the center of the Ganges. Vendors will understand that this is a good opportunity to make money, they also rowed a small boat to follow the large and small boats, to sell a variety of goods to the tourists, there are leaves made of river lamps, rosary beads, incense wood and a variety of kinds of handicrafts. Tourists in the vendor's yelling, put a river lamp into the river, the Ganges River into a dark blue Milky Way, sparkling with countless points of stars. An even more wonderful view is about to appear. The east is about to whiten, the light mist slowly disperses, and a red sun erupts. Steeply built buildings along the banks are clothed in gold, and the river is flooded with a golden light. Looking further down the bank, the men, women and children bathing in the river entered into a state of oblivion. Some stand in waist-deep water hands busy, scrubbing to their hearts' content; some hands together, face each sun in silent prayer, peaceful face of gold overflowing color, the soul of the purification of the exposed; some have stopped to hold their breath to dive into the water, lest the holy water can not be their own sins washed clear; clad in dark reddish-yellow Hindu priests as well as naked pious believers migrating in the shore of the stone with eyes closed to play the seat; shivering children under the parents of the water jar to accept the splash of the head. shivering children under their parents' water pots; sari clad women bathing, surprisingly able to change into dry clothes in the midst of a sea of people without exposing the slightest bit of their bodies.

Perhaps she is so beautiful that Hindus would like to believe that the river is made up of drops of water from the hair of their favorite god, Shiva, that fall at their feet and then flow into the river. The Ganges is a holy river in the minds of devotees, although in fact its waters are quite turbid. However, devotees still believe that by bathing in the Ganges and purifying themselves, they can wash away their dirt and sins. Perhaps the river is not as dirty as the human world. They also believe that the management of the dead "time limit" Shiva often patrol the banks of the Ganges River, where the death of the cremated people here, can be free from the pain of reincarnation, directly into heaven. As a result, followers of Hinduism regard this place as the entrance to heaven, and in their lifetime, they have to go to the Ganges River at least once to bathe and purify themselves, so every year there are more than a million or more Hindus come here to gather to bathe and purify themselves, and to hold a large-scale religious gathering.

Every morning, thousands of Hindus, male or female, old or young, both locals and foreigners, come to the Ganges River, with a pious mood, into the Ganges River, a painful bath, in order to use the holy water to wash away their own body of dirt or sin, to achieve the life of transcendence of the mortal world, the death of eternal life in the kingdom of heaven's desire. Hindus are so devout to the Ganges water "rinse body faults" as a great comfort and honor. In the city of Varanasi on both sides of the crescent-shaped bay, the successive dynasties have built a large and small 64 steps pier, for people to do ice bath worship.

A people who do not need security doors are a people of deep dignity. Perhaps the peaceful traditions of Hinduism, and Gandhi's nonviolence, are most likely to grow in the cleanliness and gentleness of this people. A movie called Gandhi's Biography, Gandhi enigmatic character. This dry, thin old man, always bald and barefoot, spun his own yarn, grew his own food, and on one occasion, in protest against an unreasonable salt tax, once took men, women, and children refusing to eat British salt, walked all the way to the sea, and did his own drying and straining of the salt. His overthrow of British imperial colonial rule was a historic feat that did not require an army or huge sums of money, and once he had made up his mind, all that was left to do was to walk out of his house in silence on a great march for peace. He went from village to village, from one plain to another, the line behind him snowballing and growing until it covered the entire horizon, almost an entire people. Running into the army cordon, into bayonets and clubs, they preferred to die rather than ever resist, but simply met them silently and let themselves fall bloody under them. The first row fell, the second row went up; the second row fell, the third row went up ...... until all the journalists present closed their eyes, until the eyes and hands of all the repressors were trembling, until they fled in terror from these unarmed men and finally surrendered power.

The soul of India, Gandhi, unlike Russia's Lenin, China's Mao Zedong, Yugoslavia's Tito and Cuba's Guevara, accomplished India's independence without a word, one of the political miracles and myths of the 20th century.

Festivals here are also different from those in China: the streets are not filled with traffic, but are surprisingly dimly lit and sparsely populated; there is no mingling of cups and glasses, but all the restaurants and kitchens are shut down - in the traditional practice of fasting for a day to usher in the new year. They celebrated not with sensual indulgence but with the cessation of desire. Their hunger is sacred, it is blissful, and it is remembrance. This hunger from a long history, from a long history of fathers for their daughters, brothers for their sisters, sons for their mothers, wives for their husbands, hosts for their guests, friends for their friends, and people for their trees and the land, has become a mysterious rite of passage that has been an integral part of their grand festivals for generations.

Perhaps it is because they have placed all their hopes in the afterlife that they can be so negative and open about the sufferings of the present world. The banks of the Ganges River are lined with many old people waiting to die, they are hungry, cold and dirty, but they suffer in silence, do not fight, do not cry, do not complain, just waiting to be able to die on the banks of the Ganges River. Because according to the customary practice, this can be free cremation, to realize their ashes into the Ganges wish. However, this is the way of the poor who have no choice. More people prefer to go to the burning pit by the river. This place is often called "Manikarnika Ghat". Rich people use white sandalwood, stack the firewood and place the body on top of it. In the case of women, the body is usually wrapped in a colorful sari and adorned with white flowers. The sari is also soaked in Ganges water to purify the body. It is then doused with spiced oil and burned for nearly three hours, with the deceased eventually being reduced to ashes. During the burning process, the relatives of the deceased chant "Ram Nam SatyaA Hai", which means "the name of the deity". In order to have a better afterlife, the ashes are scattered by the hands of the family members to the "holy river". This process is usually done in the darkness of the night and is accompanied by an atmospheric ritual performance, to which people on the shore and boats in the river draw near. With the dazzling candle flames and smoke, the old priests' raspy voices and the rhythm of brass bells, the ancient Ganges River looks even more desolate and mysterious. Of course, not everyone is eligible for cremation, like children under five years old, people without money, the bodies of those who died by suicide, are released directly on the Ganges River, or stones tied to the body directly sunk into the Ganges River. Hindus believe that the Ganges River water source in the sacred lake, so the Ganges River is the "holy river", held every 12 years, India Ganges holy water bathing festival (also known as the big pot festival).

Legend has it that the festival was first organized during the Aryan period (1500 BC in India). At that time, the gods and the demons reached a temporary agreement to share equally the immortal dew of immortality in the Milky Way after the two sides combined their efforts to obtain it. The battle for the jug of immortality lasted 12 days and 12 nights (equivalent to 12 years on earth). The dew was spilled in four places: Allahabad, Hariwa, Ujjain and Nasi. Hence, the holy water bathing festival is held in these four places.

Because of the close association of the words holy water bathing festival and Ganges with Indian religious traditions, many have come to believe that they are agreeable words. Because the holy water bathing festival is the grandest of religious festivals, the Ganges is seen as the greatest of religious rivers. For many years, the Ganges has played a pivotal role in the spiritual life of Indians. In the eyes of Hindus, the Ganges River is the incarnation of the goddess of purification Hengjia, and the water in the Ganges River is the most holy water on earth, as long as after its bath, the human soul can be reborn, infected with a serious illness can be regained healthy life. Every year, there are many pilgrims who come to the Ganges River to hold their major religious ceremonies in the water. Some even kill themselves in the water of the Ganges in order to wash away the sins and wrongdoings of this life. As a result, corpses sometimes float on the Ganges. People will salvage the body after cremation, will comply with the will of the deceased will be sprinkled in the Ganges ashes. In this way, year after year, the water of the Ganges was seriously polluted, became one of the most polluted rivers in India. But the Hindus are still my way, they bathe in this, drink in this, but rarely poisoned or sick. Is the Ganges water really sacred and has some kind of self-purification ability?

What's more interesting is that this "holiness" claim doesn't seem to be a myth or legend among the faithful. Most of those who bathe in the Ganges live to be over 100 years old and rarely fall ill. This is one of the topics scientists are studying.

Scientists have found that the water in the Ganges has a very high oxygen content, which is caused by the turbulent flow of water and full contact with the air. And the higher oxygen content makes it difficult for anaerobic disease-causing microorganisms such as Plasmodium to survive.

But scientists have also found that the water in the middle and lower reaches of the Ganges has high levels of E. coli, with levels 5 meters offshore 20 to 30 times higher than drinking water standards. This is due to the indiscriminate discharge of fecal matter into the Ganges.