Kumbh Mela

Kumbh Mela, the most famous and visited Hindu religious gathering, is held four times every twelve consecutive years on the riversides in Haridwar, Allahabad (Prayag), Nashik, and Ujjain. Pilgrims go primarily to purify their karma through ritual ablutions at auspicious moments, but, as any Hindu religious fair, Kumbh Mela is also an opportunity to receive holy men’s teachings and blessings, or at least to see them and be in their presence. More, pilgrims are involved in various ritual activities: processions, feasts (prasād), sermons (pūjās), religious performances, and so on. The communion of the crowd of pilgrims seeking self-realization, the sadhus’ presence, some of them descending directly from Himalayan retreats, and the specificity of the sites create a unique atmosphere in which the believer can experience the encounter with the sacred. For many, Kumbh Mela has been a turning point toward asceticism in their lives. Several factors confer the sacredness of the four sites: First is the spiritual quality of the water because it is the body of the deified rivers, Godāvarī at Nashik and Viṣṇu’s blood in the Kṣiprā River at Ujjain. Gaṅgā empowers Haridwar and participates in the threefold magical power of Prayag Triveni Sangham (triple confluence) together with Yamunā and Sarasvatī, whose river is invisible. Second, being placed on riverbanks, the four Kumbh Mela sites are tīrtha (fords), exceptional places where prayers are heard, and one’s spirituality is more radiant. Tīrthas are also passages to the spiritual world, part of a large network on the Indian subcontinent. Third, there is a multilayered mythology that supports the sacredness of these pilgrimage sites. There are, as James Lochtefeld in God’s Gateway: Identity and Meaning in a Hindu Pilgrimage Place and Kama McLean in Pilgrimage and Power mention, charter myths specific to each mela, but less known to pilgrims, who are more familiar with the Myth of the Churning the Ocean. According to a latter version of this myth, accepted by all Hindu sects, during the battle between devas and asuras for the vessel (kumbh) with amṛta, four drops of the mixture of immortality fell into the four melas’ sites giving them magical powers.