Hindu festival rides into capital

Cardiff, UK - One of the world's oldest street festival was held in Cardiff to spread cultural, social and religious understanding, say its organisers.

The Festival of the Chariots, or Ratha Yatra, was first held in the Indian city of Puri 5,000 years ago and is now run in various cities across the world.

It involved the procession of a trio of Hindu deities on huge chariots through the streets ending in a festival event.

The event started with a procession leading to the Coopers Field festival.

The Hindu festival was held to give the chance for non-Hindus to get a glimpse of three of its most important figures or deities - Jagannath, Baladeva and Subhadra.

As part of the festival, the trio are paraded through local streets on the back of three 12m (40 ft) high wooden chariots.

Each chariot was accompanied by singing, chanting and dancing devotees with the procession ending in with a stage show, festival and free vegetarian feast for all those who attend.

Originating in India, the festival first came to the West in 1967 when it was held in San Francisco and from 1969 has been held in London where it now attracts up to 30,000 people each year.

The event is now in its fourth year in Cardiff and organisers hoped to attract up to 1,000 people to this year's parade and festival.

Love and understanding

Speaking before the event, organiser Tarakanatha Das said the event was a chance for people to find out about Hinduism and its culture.

"It's about bringing people together and about trying to put a good slant on religion by getting people to increase their love and understanding of God," said Mr Das, who is originally from Abertridwr near Caerphilly and became a Hare Krishna 22 years ago.

"It's a real family event and it crosses all cultural, social and religious boundaries," he said.

"It's slowly building up year-by-year and helping us cross those boundaries as people come and help us out every year and some of them have stayed with us.

"There's not many festivals which you can go to where they give out free food at the end and last year we gave out about 800 plates so this year we're hoping for 1,000."