英闻天下——193 Travel Blog: India Festival

 　　For millions of devout 1 Hindus, it is time yet again to soak in the spiritual energy of what is perhaps the world's largest religious gathering 2 - the Maha Kumbh mela or Grand Pitcher 3 Festival.

 
　　The 55-day festival is being held in the holy city of Allahabad, on the banks of the revered 4 Ganges River.
 
　　The festival kicked off on Jan 14 with millions of Hindu devotees taking a bath at the confluence 5 of three rivers - holy Ganga, Yamuna and mythical 6 Saraswati -　to cleanse 7 their sins. Here is Hindu devotee Lakshmi Singh.
 
　　"There is faith, there is total, the old tradition that had carried on. And water, I mean the river itself, the mother itself. It's not just a river. It has such great value, properties to it."
 
　　The Kumbh mela is organized four times every 12 years in those towns. It is a congregation like no other, bringing together millions of Hindu faithful including the naked ascetics 8, nirvana seekers and admirers of Indian spiritual traditions.
 
　　According to Hindu mythology 9, the Kumbh mela celebrates the victory of gods over demons 10 in a furious battle over nectar that would give them immortality 11. As one of the gods fled with a pitcher of the nectar across the skies, it spilled on four Indian towns; Allahabad, Nasik, Ujjain and Haridwar.
 
　　Hindus believe that sins accumulated in past and current lives require them to continue the cycle of death and rebirth until they are cleansed 12.
 
　　The numbers of pilgrims grow with every Kumbh mela. To arrange logistics for a religious congregation of this size and scale is always a challenge.
 
　　About 50-thousand policemen have been deployed 13 to keep order at the festival, fearing everything from terrorist attacks to the ever-present danger of human stampedes.
 
　　Organizers have installed global positioning systems, online maps and giant LED screens to flash messages and images.
 
　　Inspector 14 General of Police in Allahabad Alok Sharma says they have a great deal of technology at their disposal.
 
　　"It's a huge leap as far as technology is concerned. Now we are in a world we are using all forms of technology for communication - from 3G to internet telephoning, to bulk SMSs to a normal wireless 15, CCTV systems and last but not the least, one to one telephones that communicate between two points, the critical points which are totally fail-safe, like the bridges."
 
　　But not everyone among the tens of millions of visitors is familiar with the latest devices available. Here is Sharma.
 
　　"Not everyone who comes to the mela is educated. Not everyone who comes to the mela is very confident about moving around. They all are very scared because of the crowds, just the sheer numbers. So we have to guide them by the basic principle of guiding, by word of mouth and by symbols and signals. So it is a mixture of modernity and traditionalism as far as technology and the way we function is concerned."
 
　　The Kumbh mela also attracts global devotees from many Western countries, who have been ordained 16 in the hierarchy 17 of Hindu religious sects 18 and have chosen to live like holy men. While for others it is a personal journey of discovery.
 
　　Over 110 million people are expected to take a dip in the waters before the Kumbh mela ends on March 10.
 
　　For CRI, I am Zhang Wan 19.