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Kataragama Festival (SRI LANKA)
If you have a faint heart the Kataragama festival is not fit for you…. Because beautful Kataragama in the South East corner of Sri Lanka dedicates a festival in honor of God Skanda, and Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims from all over the world visit a jungle shrine and participate in the festival. However the Katagarama festival includes fire walking, body skewering and other masochistic rituals that not everyone has the heart to watch.
To experience this very holy festival that attracts pilgrims showing devotion to God Skanda locally called Kataragama Deviyo, we travelled to the north of Katagarama. It was particularly very interesting to see the offerings such as flowers and fruits by devotees of 3 big religions.
On our way to the temple complex Maha devala, to present our offerings, we saw many Hindu devotees who self punished themselves with several masochistic acts such as skewering themselves with different objects, walking on fire, some entering deep ritualistic trances.
The Maha Devala was a simple building in white stone, without any ornamentaion but carvings at the entrance. We presented our offerings, and not only was it us that payed homage to God Skanda, elephants were forced to bow in his presence too.