Sultānganj

The Ganges-side town at Sultanganj in Bhagalpur district, Bihar — the starting point of the annual Shravan Mela Kanwaria pilgrimage, in which about 10 million barefoot pilgrims (kanwarias) carry Ganga water the 108 kilometres from Sultanganj to the Vaidyanath jyotirlinga at Deoghar during the Hindu month of Shravan (July-August). The pilgrimage, documented since the 15-century Sultanate period, is one of the largest annual mass pilgrimages in the world, with kanwarias traveling by foot in colour-coded brotherhoods (saffron for Hindu renunciates, red for family pilgrims) and carrying the pakhal (bamboo-and-pot water-carrying device) on their shoulders. Sultanganj preserves the 7-century Gupta-period Ajgaibinath Shiva temple on the Ganga rocks, the 1864 British sandstone bridge (one of the first iron bridges across the Ganga), and the ancient Buddhist Dharmachakrasvamin Vihara ruins.