Kumbha Mela is a Hindu festival in India.
("Aquarius/Water Bearer Festival") Haridwar, Allahabad, Ujjain,
and Nasik are the four sites where this religious event is held.
The first two are by far the most significant, with
Allahabad being the holiest of them all.
These celebrations attract a large number of people.
On the climactic day in 1998, 10 million people gathered in
Haridwar.
Both of these locations also hold an Ardha
("half") Kumbha Mela, which takes place around six years after the
major Kumbha Mela and is lower in magnitude but still attracts millions of
people.
The entire Kumbha Melas at Ujjain and Nasik are not as well
attended as the other two places.
Because the Kumbha Mela is a bathing (snana) celebration,
all of the Mela venues are located near rivers.
The ascetics from all over South Asia who come to bathe in
the hallowed waters are the main players in the Kumbha Mela.
According to legend, the great philosopher Shankaracharya
founded the Kumbha Mela to encourage regular meetings of educated and holy men
as a way to reinforce, preserve, and disseminate Hindu religious ideas.
The Kumbha Mela is also a chance for these ascetics to
demonstrate their social standing.
The sequence in which the various ascetic sects wash is
rigidly regulated at each location, with the more significant groups bathing
first.
This directive has been executed by the government in recent
years.
It was formerly the source of tremendous contention, which
often devolved into violent combat as rival ascetic groups competed for pride
of position.
The astrological positions of the planet Jupiter, the sun,
and the moon define the timing for each Kumbha Mela festival.
The Mela takes place in Haridwar when Jupiter is in Aquarius
(Kumbha) and the sun enters Aries; Allahabad when Jupiter is in Taurus and the
sun and moon are in Capricorn; Ujjain when Jupiter is in Leo and the full moon
appears in the lunar month of Baisakh; and Nasik when Jupiter is in Leo and the
full moon appears in the lunar month of Shravan.
These alignments happen every twelve years or so.
The Kumbha Mela's founding myth is based on the legend of
Churning the Ocean of Milk.
The gods and their demon opponents begin to argue over the
pot of nectar after the ocean has been churned and the nectar of immortality
(amrta) has been extracted.
The gods take the pot and flee, but the person carrying it
becomes weary of carrying it and, after twelve days, drops it four
times—namely, in the four locations where the Mela is held.
A drop of nectar spills on the earth at each location,
sanctifying the location.
According to popular belief, the waters in which people
bathe become the elixir of immortality during each Kumbha Mela's most
auspicious hour, and all those who bathe in these waters acquire immeasurable
religious virtue.
The Kumbha Mela is regarded as the world's biggest religious
celebration.
The Uttar Pradesh government organizes the Melas in Haridwar
and Allahabad, arranging transportation, drinking water, and sanitation for
millions of pilgrims, as well as constructing temporary towns for the tourists.
Ascetics go from all across the subcontinent, some for
months at a time.
In order to spread their message, several religious groups
put up booths.
The government has recently started to use the Mela to
promote principles like as family planning and cleaning up the Ganges, as well
as to market the Mela as a tourist destination, so fostering economic
development.
This fusion of commerce and religion has a long history; in
the early nineteenth century, Haridwar's annual spring bathing fair doubled as
a trading fair, especially for horses.
For many individuals, the prospect of seeing the Mela's
spectacle is at least as compelling as the prospect of having their sins washed
away.
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