During the pandemic, millions of people in India gathered on the banks of the Ganges to bathe and make pilgrimages
Can bathing really wash away the new crown virus? The answer is no, but India has created this "miracle"!
Since the outbreak of the new crown virus, people around the world have fought with the same enemy and actively fought against the epidemic, creating many anti-epidemic miracles. But our neighbor, India, has created a strange way to fight the new crown virus – bathing on the Ganges.
Is Ganges bathing really effective? If it is not effective, why does it attract tens of thousands of people hundreds of thousands or even millions of people to bathe on the banks of the Ganges for a long time every year?
★ The superstition of bathing in the Ganges to fight the epidemic has harmed the Indian people
Mr. Baidu said: India is one of the countries with the deepest religious influence in the world. Religion plays a central and decisive role in the lives of this country and the vast majority of its people. One of the most important religions is Hinduism, which is practiced by about 83% of the population of all india.
Indians bathe in the Ganges and drink the waters of the Ganges
So, what does Hinduism have to do with "bathing in the Ganges"?
According to Hindu legend, the Ganges is the embodiment of the goddess of heaven. At the request of the king of men, the goddess of the Ganges washed away the sins of the king's ancestors. In the Himalayas, the goddess used her head to withstand the raging river water, causing it to flow to the earth in 7 ways, and the water purified the souls of the kings' ancestors and irrigated the farmland. Thus, the water of the Ganges became the holy water for the Hindus to wash away sin and benefit mankind; the goddess became a saint whom people worshipped. So, every year, tens of thousands of Hindus bathe and perform religious rituals on the Ganges. Indians also believe that the water of the Ganges can prolong life, and bathing in the Ganges can wash away the sins of a lifetime. Those who die on the banks of the Ganges, or are cremated or buried in water, will enjoy endless blessings in the next life and ascend to heaven with the goddess of the Ganges.
What is the result of India's "Ganges Bathing" fight against the epidemic?
According to the epidemic data released by India on January 18, 2022, the cumulative number of confirmed 37380253 in India and the cumulative death 486482. How shocking!
A large number of Indians have died from the COVID-19 pandemic
★ What is the Ganges?
To know why Indians are superstitious about "bathing in the Ganges", we must first know what kind of river the Ganges is. For the people of India, the Ganges is like the Yellow River of the Yangtze River, the mother river.
The Ganges has two main trunks, with a total length of 2525 km, and is one of the largest rivers in southern Asia. It originates in the southern foothills of the Himalayas and the Deccan Plateau and flows through the Indian states of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chalkand and West Bengal. It is precisely because of the Ganges river that these states belong to the populous states of India.
Ancient India is one of the four ancient civilizations, once created the famous "Ganges Civilization" in human history, so the Ganges River is revered by the Indian people as the "Holy River" and "Mother of India". Therefore, numerous myths and religious legends constitute the unique customs and cultures on both sides of the Ganges. To this day, people on both sides of the Ganges still maintain ancient religious practices. Many myths that have been handed down since ancient times have made the Indian people have infinite nostalgia for mother Ganges, and have left a deep cultural complex.
Hindus make a pilgrimage to the Ganges
To this day, one of the lifelong vows of most Hindus is to bathe in the Ganges at least once in this lifetime, and to let the holy river wash away all the sins of this life.
★ India is a multi-religious country
India is one of the birthplaces of the world's religions. Chinese Buddhism originated in ancient India. The Journey to the West describes the Tang Dynasty holy monk Master Xuanzang who led Sun Wukong, the Eight Precepts of pigs, the sand monks and the White Dragon Horse for thousands of miles, through 9981 difficulties, that is, to ancient India to seek the "True Scriptures". Of course, the ancient Indian Buddhism created by Shakyamuni has long since decayed in India.
The vast majority of modern Indians remain religious. Religion is closely related to Indian society, political economy and culture, and it has long penetrated into all aspects of the lives of the vast majority of Indians.
India is a multi-religious country, but it is predominantly Hindu
It is said that whether it is a town or a village in India, a factory or a school, from children to the elderly, when you meet and talk, you will always ask what religion you believe.
Nowadays, in India, there are temples almost everywhere, and villages have sacred pools. In areas where religion is prevalent, pedestrians who pass by a temple must step through the temple gate, raise their hands to strike a few small hanging bronze bells, then put some money in a container, then fold their hands, close their eyes, pray for a moment, and then continue on their way.
If you encounter the temple again in front of you, you will repeat it again. During the day, in temples at the intersection of the main street or in the temples on the side of the road, there are always many believers sitting cross-legged on the ground, listening intently to the priests telling them various mythological stories. Indians believe that there is no life without religion. Therefore, people believe in religion and act according to religious doctrines.
Devout Indian priests.
★ Hindu Jug Festival
About 83% of the population in India practices Hinduism, or about 800 million people.
The most solemn festival in Hinduism is the "Great Pot Festival". The name is derived from an ancient Indian myth and legend – the Hindu god Tiva and the group of demons Asura fought for a pot. Because the pot contains the elixir of immortality. As a result of the great war, the pot was overturned, and four drops of elixir fell on allahabad, Hariwa, Ugin, and Nasi in India. These four places also became holy places. By 2021, the four cities celebrate the Jug Festival on average once every 3 years. Other cities also have different time regulations to hold a grand "big pot festival", when the Indian people will help the old and the young, wading through the mountains and waters to the Holy Land of the Ganges to worship, bathe, drink the water of the Ganges...
Mr. Baidu introduced: The Indian Jug Festival is held every 6 years in Allahabad for 6 weeks, and as many as 70 million believers come to participate in this festival each time. Every day, millions of believers go to the Ganges to bathe and purify themselves on the occasion of the festival. It is reported that the 2014 Daju Festival began on January 14 and ended on March 10, lasting 55 days, and about 120 million believers poured into the Ganges River pilgrimage bathing.
On April 12, 2021, the Indian Jug Festival, more than 2 million Indians reportedly flocked to the Ganges river on pilgrimage. Indian medical experts, seeing the serious consequences of gatherings during the epidemic, called for the cancellation of the Big Pot Festival, but the Indian government was afraid of angering the Indian people and did not dare to restrict the holding of the festival pilgrimage. The result is that the police who maintain order are helpless, and the medical staff who conduct on-site tests are even more helpless. The Indian people who participated in the pilgrimage believed only that the holy water of the Ganges would wash away their sins. Every day millions of pilgrims flock to the river to worship, sacrifice and bathe. They ate and drank all over the river, which was already heavily polluted and even more filthy during the pilgrimage.
Indians who take part in the Great Pot Festival pilgrimage bath
★ Can the Ganges really wash away the virus?
"Bathing in the Ganges" is just a myth handed down from Hinduism, which has evolved into the customs and culture of the Indian people for generations. Therefore, they still believe that "Ganges Bathing" can not only wash away the sins in the soul, but also wash away the virus and dirt in the body.
It is said that the water of the Ganges, which used to flow from the southern foothills of the Himalayas, carries the sanctity of the snow-capped mountains and is rich in mineral elements that are beneficial to the human body, which is of great benefit to the Indian people who drink and bathe. This clear river water can indeed have a killing effect on harmful viruses in the human body.
However, today's Ganges water has long been seriously polluted, and the water quality has degenerated from clean and holy natural drinking water to water with harmful substances exceeding the standard.
Indian men, women and children bathing at the Big Pot Festival
In addition, Indians have the custom of dumping dead bodies in the Ganges, coupled with the rotting corpses of dead cats and dogs, animals floating in the river. There are also many women and children buried on the riverside beaches according to religious practices, and the corrupt virus has seriously polluted the waters of the Ganges.
According to 2021-08-13 17:44 Suzhou Sweet Honey Media Co., Ltd. official account, the creator of the technology field "How dirty is the Ganges?" The truth about India's runaway epidemic is all hidden in the Water of the Ganges" revealed: According to a World Health Organization test report on water samples of the Ganges. There are as many as 10,000 pathogenic bacteria in the Waters of the Ganges. The concentration of E. coli in it exceeds the standard. The World Health Organization standard is 200 units of E. coli per 100 ml. But the E. coli units detected in the Ganges exceeded the standard by 500 times, reaching 100,000 units per 100 ml. In the most polluted places, it has reached a terrifying 1 billion units per 100 milliliters.
Polluted Ganges.
The holy water of the Ganges has since become a filthy sewer. Think about it, can such a river bath or drink directly wash away the new crown virus? (About the author: Wang Tianxiang, a senior journalist and writer from Qingdao, Shandong, has lived in the snowy plains of Linhai in Northeast China for more than 50 years, published 42 monographs such as novels, written more than 200 episodes of TV series, created dozens of special TV films such as history, culture, scenery, and documentaries, published hundreds of articles in various newspapers and periodicals, and published more than 1,000 online articles. ）
Pilgrims bathing Indians