Maha Shivaratri (Night of Shiva) is a Hindu celebration of Shiva's wedding to Parvati. The festival is unusual for Hinduism in that it occurs during the night. Many, meditate, chant and pray throughout the dark hours. Some will stay awake until dawn. It is a time of introspection on how to overcome problems in one's life. Many will also fast from the morning of Maha Shivaratri until the next morning.
Shiva is one of the three main Hindu Gods alongside Brahma and Vishnu. While Brahma creats the world and Vishnu maintains it, Shiva constructively destroys and reconstructs it. This cycle of renewal results in the betterment of the universe rather than its annihilation. As he is a deity to be both feared and admired, his qualities can sometimes be contradictory. He fluctuates from rejecting all worldly pleasures to revelling in them. He may kill human souls that are under his guardianship, yet he also can be presented as a calm Yogi (practicer of yoga) on a mountain.
Shiva's marriage, with Parvati, is therefore centred around this ambiguous figure who can, and does, use his powers for both good and ill.
Maha Shivaratri, in Nepal, is specifically centred around the Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu. Around a million people come each year, many from India, to pray in Pashupatinath. The temple is one of the most important sites for the festival as it is dedicated to Shiva, who may have caused its creation according to legend. The temple contains a stone statue called a Linga (a symbolic representation of Shiva). As a result, the complex has become associated with Maha Shivaratri.
Despite the festival's purpose as a time of introspection, there is also a celebratory mood in Pashupatinath. A play, acting out key moments of Shiva and Parvati's wedding, goes on for several hours before sunset.
The crowd is merry. If you have a nice big camera, you only need to point it at a section of the crowd for everyone to cheer for the photo. During the night, people turn on the flashlight mode on their phones, as bodies are obscured by the darkness, pinpricks of light can be seen in the hundreds. The area where the play is done, having ended, is used by the final ceremony in the temple before the crowd leaves.
Many people will queue for hours to get inside the temple complex. Then some of them will wait even longer to worship in the inner temple. Only Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs of South Asian descent are allowed inside the inner temple.
However, everyone is free to enter the temple complex. Many therefore find creative ways to skip the queues. Some, for example, will go around the back of the temple and go through the jungle, then climb into the complex.
Sadhus, known also as Yogis, are present. They are extreme ascetics. Renouncing their worldly possessions, they wonder the world trying to escape the cycle of rebirth. If you try and take photos of these people, they will ask for money generally. It is best to pay before the photo or you might be about to pay for something without realising it.
Cannabis is often given out around the temple and smoked. This is because Shiva is a smoker of the substance. While the drug is illegal in Nepal, its use on Maha Shivaratri is mostly tolerated by the local authorities as while Cannabis was outlawed in 1973, cannabis has been smoked for centuries during the festival.
There is also a curious tradition for the children too, as people make their way to the temple in their hundreds of thousands, kids block the roads to ask for money.
Here are some photos I could not fit in:
