In the Hindu holy city of Varanasi in the southeast of Uttar Pradesh, India, there are Hindus who come here to make pilgrimages from various places, and since in legend, the city of Varanasi was built by Lord Shiva, one of the three main gods of Hinduism, so in addition to bathing in the water of the Ganges and visiting the Golden Temple of Shiva, another important purpose is to participate in the thousand-year-long ritual of worshiping Shiva on the banks of the Ganges River in Varanasi City every night, which is the world-famous Varanasi Ganges Night Festival.
The night festival is in progress
Every day, near dusk, a sacrificial platform is set up at intervals along the Banks of the Ganges river in preparation for the start of the night festival at a later stage. The entire night festival begins with the sun just after the sun sets and lasts for more than two hours, with a fixed process and the use of various magic tools.
Ritual vessels on the altar
The sun began to set, including believers, tourists and other crowds began to gather on the ganges river sacrifice platform, the entire Ganges river along the altar, but the largest sacrifice platform is also the sacrifice platform where people gather the most, is located in the old city dock of the sacrifice platform, here is also known as the main altar of the Ganges Night Festival, at the same time, the shape of the ancient building behind the sacrifice platform here and the lights on the building after the start of the night festival will set off the whole night festival ceremony more atmosphere.
The priest wields the magic weapon
The priests who perform the night festival are all high-caste males from India, tall and handsome, which is another reason why the night festival attracts female tourists. The whole order of the night festival is very good, there will be staff to maintain order, the ceremony is close to the beginning of the ten minutes or so before the no one other than the priest will be allowed to enter the altar, after the arrangement of the crowd, the night festival officially begins.
The priest began to pray for blessings
After the night festival begins, the person in charge of each altar bell begins to ring the bell all the time, and then the priest begins to blow the ritual of awakening the ritual, and then takes each ritual and worships in four directions, in order to pay homage to Lord Shiva in all directions. Halfway through the priests would come to the Banks of the Ganges to help the needy devotees to place the wishes made to Lord Shiva into the Ganges as a sign of conveying the wishes to Lord Shiva.
Tall, handsome priest
After the completion of the whole sacrifice process, the priest will lead all the devotees to thank Lord Shiva for his gift, at this time the power of faith can be truly felt at the scene, all the believers raise their hands and chant together with the rhythm of the priest, this process will last for more than ten minutes, and then the night festival of the day is basically over
Believers who hold their hands high together
The Ganges Night Festival in Varanasi is carried out year after year, day after day, and the faith of the Hindus has always continued, meeting different people, feeling different cultures, experiencing another faith, is this not the biggest gain brought to us by travel?