Photo gallery: Jallikattu — Celebrating south India's bull taming festivals

During the Jallikattu festival in Tamil Nadu bulls festooned with marigolds are released from pens and men try to grab their horns to win prizes.

As drums beat and the crowd cheers, a man leaps onto the back of a large bull and hangs tightly to its hump as the animal bucks and jumps.

If he can hold on to the bull for three jumps or for 30 seconds or for a distance of 15 meters he'll have a chance at winning prizes handed out by sponsors such as cooking pots, clothes, bicycles, motorbikes or even a car.

Hundreds of bull vaulters are competing in a Jallikattu festival. Taking place in amid a carnival-like atmosphere, the events are part rodeo and part running of the bulls and are held across India's Tamil Nadu state during the four-day Pongal, or winter harvest festival.

The Jallikattu has its roots in Tamil culture and a centuries-old religious ritual.

The events were banned in Tamil Nadu in 2014 for two years after India's Supreme Court found them cruel, acting on petitions by animal rights activists. That sparked protests and eventually new legislation that exempt the event from animal cruelty laws.

Dozens of young men were injured on the first day of a traditional bull-wrestling festival in southern India that has attracted the ire of animal activists.