Having fasted the previous day, he bathed in Ganga water in the morning, put on white robes and jewellery. Then he sat on a low gold plated stool, and as the eight minister poured water from holy rivers on him, 16 pure-robed Brahmin women, each with five lamps on a gold tray, waved the lights around his head to ward off evil.

Relics of another age, the tank-like rhinos are well-armored against any animal predators but vulnerable to poaching for their horns.
Although their eyesight is poor, rhinos have very well developed senses of smell and hearing. Rhinos are a declining group of mammals. In prehistoric times they were numerous and varied, but today they are heading towards extinction – unfortunately helped by man.

In March 1942 six Indian soldiers on patrol in the Himalayas were startled to see a small group of men wearing animal skins stumble down a mountain trail toward them .The soldiers were even more amazed when the four emaciated strangers-who a few moments before had scarcely been able to walk-began to laugh and dance, hugging each other and singing.

The four had every reason to rejoice: they had just completed a 4,000-mile trek on foot from a Soviet labor camp in Siberia.