NEW DELHI: A record-breaking 230 million pilgrims took the ritual dip at the confluence of holy rivers in northern India during the seven-week Kumbh Mela, officials said at the close of the festival on Monday. Hindu devotees, ash-smeared ascetics and gurus bathed during the Kumbh Mela, billed as the largest religious gathering on earth, held in the city of Prayagraj, formerly known as Allahabad.
Hindus believe that bathing at the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers during the Kumbh Mela will absolve them of all sins and stop the cycle of rebirth.
“Five bathing festivals of the Kumbh have concluded successfully with more than 220 million pilgrims taking a holy dip,” the central government said in a statement released on Sunday evening.
Senior festival official Dilip Kumar Trigunayat said an estimated 229.5 million pilgrims had taken the holy bath during the festival and 10 million more were expected on Monday, the sixth and final bathing day on the occasion of Maha Shivaratri, dedicated to Shiva, one of the deities of the Hindu trinity.
The figures beat the attendance of 120 million people at the last Kumbh in Prayagraj in 2013. In 2007, the figure was recorded at 70 million. Officials say the attendance and scale has kept rising with every edition.
“It is a huge rise compared to the previous Kumbh, which speaks of the massive effort which has gone into organising the festival. Many more people came because of the markedly improved facilities at the festival,” Trigunayat said.
Officials say the figure is determined by analysing train and bus ticket sales, movements across barricades and random sampling of people present in the bathing areas. The figure of pilgrims at Kumbh was almost three times the population of Germany.
“Around 503 shuttle buses were pressed into service on the highway in one go for the [Guinness] team on February 28. Several people participated in a painting exercise on March 1 and 10,000 workers engaged in cleaning at the Kumbh, all performing their duties together,” the government said.
The festival, which cost $590 million and presented a massive logistical challenge, was conducted smoothly without any accidents or incidents being reported, officials said.
— dpa
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