A man set wood on fire to prepare for worshippers to walk barefoot over burning coals during the Nine Emperor Gods festival at a temple in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Monday, October 7, 2024. (Photo by Vincent Thian/AP Photo)

Artists dressed as Hindu gods reacts to the camera during the Bonalu festival procession in Secunderabad, the twin city of Hyderabad, on July 26, 2021. (Photo by Noah Seelam/AFP Photo)

A Hindu devotee lies on a road as she worships the Sun god during the religious festival of Chhath Puja in Kolkata, India October 26, 2017. (Photo by Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters)

Idols of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, are transported to places of worship on the first day of the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India, September 5, 2016. (Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters)

A young devotee of the Nine Emperor Gods has a large needle pushed through his cheek during the annual Phuket Vegetarian Festival in the southern province of Phuket on October 1, 2016. (Photo by Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP Photo)

A Tenggerese shaman praying for worshippers at Widodaren cave during the Tenggerese Hindu Yadnya Kasada festival on July 31, 2015 in Probolinggo, East Java, Indonesia. The festival is the main festival of the Tenggerese people and lasts about a month. On the fourteenth day, the Tenggerese make the journey to Mount Bromo to make offerings of rice, fruits, vegetables, flowers and livestock to the mountain gods by throwing them into the volcano's caldera. The origin of the festival lies in the 15th century when a princess named Roro Anteng started the principality of Tengger with her husband Joko Seger, and the childless couple asked the mountain Gods for help in bearing children. The legend says the Gods granted them 24 children but on the provision that the 25th must be tossed into the volcano in sacrifice. The 25th child, Kesuma, was finally sacrificed in this way after initial refusal, and the tradition of throwing sacrifices into the caldera to appease the mountain Gods continues today. (Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images)

Lebanese women smoke nargileh (water pipe) and watch a streaming broadcast of the FIFA World Cup 2022 group G soccer match between Brazil and Switzerland, at a café-restaurant in the area of Sabtiyeh, north of Beirut, on November 28, 2022. Lebanon being hit hard by the economic crisis, the country did not obtain the rights to broadcast the 2022 World Cup this year, depriving Lebanese fans of the World Cup. (Photo by Joseph Eid/AFP Photo)

A juvenile European starling hops from deer to deer eating insects. The white-tailed deer did not seem at all bothered by the bird - who can be seen cleaning it of ticks and bugs. The starling was one of a flock near the herd of deer in Sandy Hook, New Jersey, USA in the last decade of November 2025. (Photo by Erik Kessler/Solent News & Photo Agency)