Kumbh Mela

Kumbh Mela / Kumbha Mela
Prayag Kumbh Mela in 2013
GenrePilgrimage
FrequencyEvery twelve years
Location(s)Alternately in Prayagraj, Haridwar, Nashik and Ujjain
Kumbh Mela
CountryIndia
DomainsReligious pilgrimage, rituals, social practices and festive events
Reference01258
RegionAsia and the Pacific
Inscription history
Inscription2017 (12th session)
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A 2019 stamp dedicated to Kumbh Mela

Kumbh Mela or Kumbha Mela (/ˌkʊmb ˈmeɪlə/) is a major pilgrimage and festival in Hinduism. On 4 February 2019, Kumbh Mela witnessed the largest peaceful public gathering of humans ever recorded.[1] It is celebrated in a cycle of approximately 12 years, to celebrate every revolution Brihaspati (Jupiter) completes, at four river-bank pilgrimage sites: Prayagraj (Ganges-Yamuna-Sarasvati rivers confluence), Haridwar (Ganges), Nashik (Godavari), and Ujjain (Shipra).[1][2] The festival is marked by a ritual dip in the waters, but it is also a celebration of community commerce with numerous fairs, education, religious discourses by saints, mass gatherings of monks, and entertainment.[3][4] The seekers believe that bathing in these rivers is a means to prāyaścitta (atonement, penance, restorative action) for past mistakes,[5] and that it cleanses them of their sins.[6]

The festival is traditionally credited to the 8th-century Hindu philosopher and saint Adi Shankara, as a part of his efforts to start major Hindu gatherings for philosophical discussions and debates along with Hindu monasteries across the Indian subcontinent.[1] However, there is no historical literary evidence of these mass pilgrimages called "Kumbha Mela" prior to the 19th century. There is ample evidence in historical manuscripts[7] and inscriptions[8] of an annual Magha Mela in Hinduism – with periodic larger gatherings after 6 or 12 years – where pilgrims gathered in massive numbers and where one of the rituals included a sacred dip in a river or holy tank. According to Kama MacLean, the socio-political developments during the colonial era and a reaction to Orientalism led to the rebranding and remobilisation of the ancient Magha Mela as the modern era Kumbh Mela, particularly after the Indian Rebellion of 1857.[2]

The weeks over which the festival is observed cycle at each site approximately once every 12 years[note 1] based on the Hindu luni-solar calendar and the relative astrological positions of Jupiter, the sun and the moon. The difference in Prayag and Haridwar festivals is about 6 years, and both feature a Maha (major) and Ardha (half) Kumbh Melas. The exact years – particularly for the Kumbh Melas at Ujjain and Nashik – have been a subject of dispute in the 20th century. The Nashik and Ujjain festivals have been celebrated in the same year or one year apart,[10] typically about 3 years after the Allahabad / Prayagraj Kumbh Mela.[11] Elsewhere in many parts of India, similar but smaller community pilgrimage and bathing festivals are called the Magha Mela, Makar Mela or equivalent. For example, in Tamil Nadu, the Magha Mela with water-dip ritual is a festival of antiquity. This festival is held at the Mahamaham tank (near Kaveri river) every 12 years at Kumbakonam, attracts millions of South Indian Hindus and has been described as the Tamil Kumbh Mela.[12][13] Other places where the Magha-Mela or Makar-Mela bathing pilgrimage and fairs have been called Kumbh Mela include Kurukshetra,[14][15] Sonipat,[16] and Panauti (Nepal).[17]

The Kumbh Melas have three dates around which the significant majority of pilgrims participate, while the festival itself lasts between one[18] and three months around these dates.[19] Each festival attracts millions, with the largest gathering at the Prayag Kumbh Mela and the second largest at Haridwar.[20] According to the Encyclopædia Britannica and Indian authorities, more than 200 million Hindus gathered for the Kumbh Mela in 2019, including 50 million on the festival's most crowded day.[1] The festival is one of the largest peaceful gatherings in the world, and considered as the "world's largest congregation of religious pilgrims".[21] It has been inscribed on the UNESCO's Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.[22][23] The festival is observed over many days, with the day of Amavasya attracting the largest number on a single day. The Kumbh Mela authorities said that the largest one-day attendance at the Kumbh Mela was 30 million on 10 February 2013,[24][25] and 50 million on 4 February 2019.[26][27][28]

  1. ^ a b c d Kumbh Mela: Hindu festival. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2015. The Kumbh Mela lasts several weeks and is one of the largest festivals in the world, attracting more than 200 million people in 2019, including 50 million on the festival's most auspicious day.
  2. ^ a b Maclean, Kama (2003). "Making the Colonial State Work for You: The Modern Beginnings of the Ancient Kumbh Mela in Allahabad". The Journal of Asian Studies. 62 (3): 873–905. doi:10.2307/3591863. JSTOR 3591863. S2CID 162404242.
  3. ^ Diana L. Eck (2012). India: A Sacred Geography. Harmony Books. pp. 153–155. ISBN 978-0-385-53190-0.
  4. ^ Williams Sox (2005). Lindsay Jones (ed.). Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd Edition. Vol. 8. Macmillan. pp. 5264–5265., Quote: "The special power of the Kumbha Mela is often said to be due in part to the presence of large numbers of Hindu monks, and many pilgrims seek the darsan (Skt., darsana; auspicious mutual sight) of these holy men. Others listen to religious discourses, participate in devotional singing, engage brahman priests for personal rituals, organise mass feedings of monks or the poor, or merely enjoy the spectacle. Amid this diversity of activities, the ritual bath at the conjunction of time and place is the central event of the Kumbha Mela."
  5. ^ Kane 1953, pp. 55–56.
  6. ^ Maclean, Kama (September 2009). "Seeing, Being Seen, and Not Being Seen: Pilgrimage, Tourism, and Layers of Looking at the Kumbh Mela". CrossCurrents. 59 (3): 319–341. doi:10.1111/j.1939-3881.2009.00082.x. S2CID 170879396.
  7. ^ Maclean, Kama (2003). "Making the Colonial State Work for You: The Modern Beginnings of the Ancient Kumbh Mela in Allahabad". The Journal of Asian Studies. 62 (3): 877–879. doi:10.2307/3591863. JSTOR 3591863. S2CID 162404242.
  8. ^ Monika Horstmann (2009). Patronage and Popularisation, Pilgrimage and Procession: Channels of Transcultural Translation and Transmission in Early Modern South Asia. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 135–136 with footnotes. ISBN 978-3-447-05723-3.
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference Jacobsen2008p40 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Matthew James Clark (2006). The Daśanāmī-saṃnyāsīs: The Integration of Ascetic Lineages into an Order. Brill. p. 294. ISBN 978-90-04-15211-3.
  11. ^ K. Shadananan Nair (2004). "Mela" (PDF). Proceedings Ol'THC. UNI-SCO/1 AI IS/I Wl IA Symposium Held in Rome, December 2003. IAHS: 165. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 August 2020. Retrieved 7 December 2017.
  12. ^ Maclean 2008, p. 102.
  13. ^ Diana L. Eck (2012). India: A Sacred Geography. Harmony Books. pp. 156–157. ISBN 978-0-385-53190-0.
  14. ^ Census of India, 1971: Haryana, Volume 6, Part 2, Page 137.
  15. ^ 1988, Town Survey Report: Haryana, Thanesar, District Kurukshetra, page 137-.
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference satk1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Gerard Toffin (2012). Phyllis Granoff and Koichi Shinohara (ed.). Sins and Sinners: Perspectives from Asian Religions. BRILL Academic. pp. 330 with footnote 18. ISBN 978-90-04-23200-6.
  18. ^ James Lochtefeld (2008). Knut A. Jacobsen (ed.). South Asian Religions on Display: Religious Processions in South Asia and in the Diaspora. Routledge. p. 29. ISBN 978-1-134-07459-4.
  19. ^ James Mallinson (2016). Rachel Dwyer (ed.). Key Concepts in Modern Indian Studies. New York University Press. pp. 150–151. ISBN 978-1-4798-4869-0.
  20. ^ Maclean 2008, pp. 225–226.
  21. ^ The Maha Kumbh Mela 2001 indianembassy.org
  22. ^ [=00103&multinational=1#2021 Kumbh Mela] UNESCO Intangible World Heritage official list.
  23. ^ Kumbh Mela on UNESCO's list of intangibl Archived 7 December 2017 at the Wayback Machine, Economic Times, 7 December 2017.
  24. ^ "Over 3 crore take holy dip in Sangam on Mauni Amavasya". India Times. 10 February 2013. Archived from the original on 22 January 2016.
  25. ^ Rashid, Omar (11 February 2013). "Over three crore devotees take the dip at Sangam". The Hindu. Chennai.
  26. ^ Jha, Monica (23 June 2020). "Eyes in the sky. Indian authorities had to manage 250 million festivalgoers. So they built a high-tech surveillance ministate". Rest of World. Retrieved 23 June 2020.
  27. ^ "Mauni Amavasya: Five crore pilgrims take holy dip at Kumbh till 5 pm", Times of India, 4 February 2019, retrieved 24 June 2020
  28. ^ "A record over 24 crore people visited Kumbh-2019, more than total tourists in UP in 2014–17". Hindustan Times. 21 May 2019. Retrieved 15 March 2022.


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