The festival is also celebrated in neighboring Nepal’s Pashupati temple, and many Indian Hindus, who make up 80% of the country's 1.4 billion people, travel there for the festival.
The devotees celebrate the festival in temples by pouring water or milk over the Shiva linga, a stone sculpture symbolic of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction.
At some temples, Hindu holy men, also known as Sadhus, smoke marijuana — a practice that is normally illegal but is permitted during the Shivaratri festival — and smear their bodies with ash in devotion.
Millions of devotees across India are celebrating the Shivaratri festival that honors the Hindu god Shiva, one of the main deities of Hinduism.
This year’s festival coincides with the last day of the Maha Kumbh festival that's held every 12 years.
