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Hindu devotees take dip in Yamuna on Bhai Duj

     Mathura: Hindu devotees took ritualistic dip in Yamuna River here on Yama Dwitiya festival on Tuesday, also known as Bhai Duj in the rest of the country. Thousands of siblings flocked the banks of the river to take bath in Yamuna. "It was here that Lord Yama met his estranged sister River Yamuna. The two were separated from each other as the girl had followed her mother Chhaya, the wife of Lord Surya to the Earth after Surya's wrath brought about their separation. The brother and sister were so overjoyed at their meeting that they decided to grant a passage to the heaven after death to anyone who bathes in river Yamuna here on this occasion of Yama Dwitiya. It is a promise that has been kept to this date," said Shubhadra, a devotee. "My parents use to bring us here every year when my sister and I were kids. Today, I make it a point to follow the tradition by bringing my children to bathe in this river on this auspicious occasion. The brother and sister take a dip as we help them the rest of my family is here too," said Vishal Mundada, another devotee who had been practicing the tradition ever since his childhood. In the rest of India, Bhai Duj is celebrated with a difference by siblings. Sisters anoint the foreheads of their brothers with sandalwood paste and feed them sweets. Brothers' gift their sisters with cash or materials and the sisters pray for prosperity and longevity of their brothers. Anthropologists and theological experts believe the ancient Hindu belief of deifying the rivers began as a move by the educated classes to make the masses revere water and its sources and thus bring about conservation of ecological elements.
-Oct 24, 2006