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The Triveni Sangam, the intersection of the Yamuna River and the Ganges River. In Hindu tradition, Triveni Sangam is the confluence (Sanskrit: sangama) of three rivers that is a sacred place, with a bath here said to flush away all of one's sins and free one from the cycle of rebirth.
After taking water from the Ganges river (or other nearby river that wind up in the Ganges) the pilgrims, known as kanwariya or Shiv Bhaktas (disciples of Shiva), are mandated to travel barefooted and in saffron robes with their kanwar (walking sticks used to hang the urns of water) for 105 km by various routes and usually in groups made of ...
These sacred places are usually located on the banks of sacred waters, such as sacred rivers or their tributaries (among the rigvedic rivers of sapta sindhu the trio ganges-yamuna-saraswati are considered most sacred), the kundas (pond or lake, among these the Lake Manasarovar is considered most scared), the ghats (water bodies with stairs such ...
For example, the colonial era Imperial Gazetteer of India reported that between 2 and 2.5 million pilgrims attended the Kumbh Mela in 1796 and 1808, then added these numbers may be exaggerations. Between 1892 and 1908, in an era of major famines, cholera and plague epidemics in British India, the pilgrimage dropped to between 300,000 and 400,000.
About 400 million pilgrims are expected to attend the 45-day spectacle, which is so large it can be seen from space. In photos: World's biggest religious festival begins in India WATCH: Sea of ...
The Ganges is said to purify the soul of negative karma, corporeal sins, and even impurities from previous lives. [12] At sunrise along the Ganges, pilgrims descend the ghat steps to drink of the waters, bathe themselves in the waters and perform ablutions where they submerge their entire bodies.
At Haridwar, a headworks diverts some of its water into the Ganges Canal, which irrigates the Doab region of Uttar Pradesh, [23] whereas the river, whose course has been roughly southwest until this point, now begins to flow southeast through the plains of northern India. The Ganges river follows a 900 km (560 mi) arching course passing through ...
Prime Minister Narendra Modi committed $3 billion in 2015 to clean up the waterway that provides drinking water for 400 million people.