Starting Tuesday, tens of millions of Hindu devotees in India will gather to wash their sins away on the banks of the Ganges River in a festival known as the Kumbh Mela. The tradition, which dates back over a millennia, is billed as the world’s largest single gathering of humanity.
Through March 4, an estimated 120 million people will flock to the northern city of Prayagraj to bathe at the Sangam, a confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the Saraswati rivers, BBC reports. By comparison, that’s almost 14 times the population of New York City.
While the full Kumbh Mela occurs in 12-year cycles, there are three additional festivals held in between. This year’s Kumbh Mela is projected to be even bigger than the last full one in 2013, which drew an estimated 100 million people....