400 million people are about to arrive in one place to take a bath.
Quote:The event - held once every 12 years - starts on Monday and over the next six weeks, the devout will bathe at Sangam - the confluence of India's most sacred Ganges river with the Yamuna river and the mythical Saraswati.
Hindus believe that taking a dip in the sacred river will cleanse them of sins, purify their soul and liberate them from the cycle of birth and death - as the ultimate goal of Hinduism is salvation.
About 400 million pilgrims are expected to attend the 45-day spectacle, which is so large it can be seen from space.
Authorities said that on Monday, until 4pm local time, 16 million people had taken a bath. On Tuesday, numbers are expected to exceed 20 million, and the spectacle will be special as it will see ash-smeared naked Hindu holy men with matted dreadlocks, known as Naga sadhus, take a dip at dawn.
The festival has its origin rooted in a mythological story about a fight between the gods and demons over a Kumbh (a pitcher) of nectar that emerged during the churning of the ocean.
As the two sides fought over the pot of elixir that promised them immortality, a few drops spilled over and fell in four cities - Prayagraj, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nasik.
Hindu seer Mahant Ravindra Puri said the festival this time round was "extra special" and described it as "a Maha [great] Kumbh".
"That's because the current alignment of planets and stars is identical to what existed at the moment of the spill," he told the BBC.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg7gzzx3gno
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
