Rishi Panchami Festival in Kathmandu, Nepal by Skanda Gautam / SOPA Images
Rishi Panchami marks the final day of the three-day Teej festival, when women worship the Saptarishi, or Seven Sages, and traditionally cleanse their bodies with 365 stems of Apamarga, a medicinal plant, along with cow dung, sacred soil, and ash, in the belief that the ritual purifies them and absolves sins believed to have been incurred during menstruation.
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