A man applies coats of glass powder to kite strings ahead of the Hindu festival “Uttarayan” in Ahmedabad on December 21, 2023. (Photo by Sam Panthaky/AFP Photo)

Children dressed as Hindu deities take part in an event to mark the consecration of Ayodhya Ram temple, in Bhopal on January 22, 2024. (Photo by Gagan Nayar/AFP Photo)

A Naga sadhu, or naked Hindu holy man, pauses inside a tent during Kumbh Mela, or Pitcher festival, at Trimbakeshwar, India, Thursday, August 27, 2015. Hindus believe taking a dip in the waters of a holy river during the festival will cleanse them of their sins. The festival is held four times every 12 years. (Photo by Bernat Armangue/AP Photo)

An Indian artists uses sparkles to decorate statues of the Hindu god Lord Ganesh ahead of the forthcoming Ganesh Chaturthi festival at a workshop in Hyderabad on August 29, 2016. The statues are being prepared for the Ganesh Chaturthi festival a popular eleven-day long Hindu religious festival in India which will be celebrated from September 5 to 15. (Photo by Noah Seelam/AFP Photo)

A Hindu devotee is helped by other people as she walks on burning coals during a religious procession Vel Festival of the Hindu goddess Maha Mariamman (Sheetla Mata), in New Delhi, India, 06 April 2017. People get their bodies pierced with different kinds of metal needles and rods and participate in a religious procession as thanks giving gesture to the goddess in return of their fulfilled wishes during the annual procession. (Photo by Rajat Gupta/EPA)

A woman dressed in the style of a Hindu goddess keeps her face partially covered for a ritual during Maha Shivaratri celebrations on March 12, 2021 in Kaveripattinam, India. Maha Shivaratri is a major Hindu festival celebrated annually in honour of the god, Shiva. The festival is observed with chanting prayers, fasting, and meditating to overcome “darkness and ignorance” in life. (Photo by Abhishek Chinnappa/Getty Images)

A sadhu, or a Hindu holy man, blesses a devotee as he smokes marijuana at a transit camp on the way to Gangasagar, in Kolkata, India, Sunday, January 7, 2018. Thousands of Hindu pilgrims are expected to take the annual holy dip at Gangasagar, where the Ganges River reaches the Bay of Bengal, on the auspicious Makar Sankranti festival day that falls on Jan. 14. (Photo by Bikas Das/AP Photo)

Indian Naga Sadhus, or naked holy men, participate in a procession before taking a “shahi snans”, or holy bath, at the Sangam river, the confluence of three of the holiest rivers in Hindu mythology, the Ganga, the Yamuna and the Saraswati, during Kumbh Mela festival in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India, 15 January 2019. The Hindu festival is one of the biggest in India and will be held from 15 January to 04 March 2019 in Allahabad. (Photo by Rajat Gupta/EPA/EFE)