Devotees from Nepal, India offer prayers to Lord Shiva at Pashupatinath temple

Over one million devotees from India and Nepal on Monday thronged the Pashupatinath temple here to observe Maha Shivaratri festival at the famous 5th century temple situated on the banks of Bagmati river.

This year's Mahashivaratri is considered more auspicious as it has fallen on Monday, a day dedicated specially to worship Lord Shiva.

All four doors of the temple, regarded as the most sacred and oldest temple of Shiva in Nepal, remained open since 3 am.

The entire temple premises was decorated with colourful lights, flags and banners. The temple authorities have allocated Rs 5.4 million budget for the Maha Shivaratri festival.

The devotees observed fast before offering prayers to the Lord Shiva. Hundreds of Naga Sadhus mostly from India performed special rituals in the temple premises.

In the vicinity of the temple, devotional programmes were presented and vegetarian meals were served by different charity organisations to the devotees.

In view of massive number of devotees thronging the temple, more than 6,000 security personnel along with 5,000 volunteers were deployed for maintaining law and order and smooth functioning of the celebrations.

Vehicles were restricted few kilometers away from the temple premises to ease traffic arrangements.

The Pashupati Area Development Trust has made special arrangements including temporary shelter, water, complementary meals, medicines etc for the convenience of the devotees.