Hindu devotees disappointed as sacred icicle melts

SRINAGAR, India (AFP) – Thousands of Hindu pilgrims faced disappointment on Monday after a large, sacred phallic-shaped icicle in a Himalayan cave melted — leaving people blaming body heat or global warming.

Hundreds of thousands of devotees make a long, tiring trek to the Kashmir mountains each year to look at the natural icy formation, worshipped as a symbol of the god of destruction, Shiva.

But by Monday, just the second day of the two-month-long pilgrimage, the pilgrims only had a tiny stump of ice to look at — compared to a 3.6-metre (12-foot) high formation that was there a few weeks ago.

“The Shivlingam (Shiv phallus) has melted down completely,” Arun Kumar, a senior official of the pilgrimage board, told AFP.

AFP