The Kumbh Mela has been held on the banks of the Ganges for thousands of years.
Relations between India and Bangladesh have been strained for years over sharing water from the Ganges.
Disillusioned, according to Mr Din, he threw his bugle into the Ganges shortly before he died.
We walk to the relative solitude of the banks of the Ganges and sit down.
Many of them are carrying bottles or cans full of Ganga-jal - sacred water from the Ganges.
But it's the Ganges river dolphin and the Irrawaddy dolphin which give the most cause for concern.
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Yesterday morning, as per Hindu custom, the ashes from her cremated body were scattered in the Ganges River.
The Ganges was blocked by a mammoth landslide last month, and a big lake formed behind the landfall.
However, when the British came into India, to Varanasi and up the Ganges, they brought products from their mills.
In Hindu cosmology, this is the area where Shiva first set foot on earth, where the Ganges River begins.
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Yes they have that sort of thing on the Ganges but they are ready for it and do it right.
These politicians should bathe in the Ganges to absolve their sins.
If they bathe at the Ganges on the most auspicious day of the festival, believers say they can rid themselves of their sins.
Many of these areas are found in Asia, such as the Ganges River Delta, the Mekong River Delta and islands in the South Pacific.
On the first day of the 55-day Hindu festival, an estimated 8 million people bathed at the merging point of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.
Herschel in 1967 and boating east Himalayan rivers and the Ganges.
Andrew Turner has built the boat and is ferrying pilgrims for free at Sangam, the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, where the festival is held.
The incident took place on the main day of bathing on Sunday when 30 million pilgrims took a dip at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.
The authorities have set up tented camps along the banks of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, but with about 100 million people attending, demand for accommodation is very high.
For 42 days starting on January 9th, the alignment of the stars makes Allahabad, where the Ganges, the Yamuna and a mythical third river converge, an especially holy place to be.
An estimated 30 million Hindus took a dip Sunday at the Sangam the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the Saraswati rivers as part of the 55-day Kumbh Mela, or Pitcher Festival.
For visitors interested in religion and architecture, she might craft an itinerary to Agra via the spiritual center of Varanasi to witness the ceremony of lighting votive lamps on the Ganges, and Khajuraho, known for its intricate temples.
Some say all amavasyas - or new moon nights - are auspicious for bathing in the Ganges, but Mauni (silent) Amavasya is also special as many pilgrims do not speak until they have had their bath.
Her recognition as a spiritual leader came rather suddenly in 1982 when she tried to buy a copy of the Hindu sacred work the Bhagavad-Gita that she says she saw in a shop along the Ganges.
Those living in low lying areas, and particularly those inhabiting areas such as the Ganges delta in Bangladesh and the Nile delta in the Mediterranean, could suffer appalling consequences if the sea level rises as predicted.
It is much harder to mitigate the side-effects of piety in places like India, where Hindu gatherings on the banks of the Ganges (especially a peripatetic cycle of festivals known as Kumbh Mela) attract tens of millions of people.
Situated on the banks of the Ganges River, Varanasi (formerly Benares) is visited by millions of Hindu pilgrims each year, most coming to cremate a deceased loved one and bathe themselves in the river's horrifically polluted but extremely holy waters.
One of the most important dates in the Hindu religious calendar, the festival attracts millions of participants from India and around the world, who bathe in the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna and mythical Saraswati Rivers to cleanse their sins.
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