NEW DELHI, February 26, 2025 (AP) — Millions of devotees across India are celebrating the Shivaratri festival that honors the Hindu god Shiva, one of the main deities of Hinduism.
The devotees celebrate the festival in temples by pouring water or milk over the Shiva linga, a stone sculpture symbolic of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction. Some also observe a fast during the day and stay up all night, singing and dancing to religious songs.
At some temples, Hindu holy men, also known as Sadhus, smoke marijuana — a practice that is normally illegal but is permitted during the Shivaratri festival — and smear their bodies with ash in devotion.
The festival is also celebrated in neighboring Nepal’s Pashupati temple, and many Indian Hindus, who make up 80% of the country’s 1.4 billion people, travel there for the festival.
This year’s festival coincides with the last day of the Maha Kumbh festival that’s held every 12 years. This year, the festival started on Jan. 13, with more than 500 million people attending so far.
At least 30 people were killed in a stampede at the festival last month, after tens of millions of Hindus gathered to take a dip in sacred river waters.
Hindus believe that bathing at the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers in the northern city of Prayagraj during the Maha Kumbh, the water will cleanse them of their sins and release them from the cycle of rebirth.
