Kumbh Mela or Kumbha Mela is a major pilgrimage and festival in Hinduism. It is celebrated in a cycle of approximately 12 years at four river-bank pilgrimage sites: the Prayagraj, Haridwar, Nashik and Ujjain. The word Kumba literally means ‘pitcher, jar, pot’ in Sanskrit.
About Kumbh Mela in brief
Kumbh Mela or Kumbha Mela is a major pilgrimage and festival in Hinduism. It is celebrated in a cycle of approximately 12 years at four river-bank pilgrimage sites: the Prayagraj, Haridwar, Nashik and Ujjain. 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 feedings of monks or the poor, and entertainment spectacle. The seekers believe that bathing in these rivers is a means to prāyaścitta for past mistakes, and that it cleanses them of their sins. Each festival attracts millions, with the largest gathering at theprayag Kumbh mela and the second largest at Harid war. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 60 million Hindus gathered for the KumbH Mela in 2001. It has been inscribed on the UNESCO’s Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The word Kumba literally means ‘pitcher, jar, pot’ in Sanskrit. The term also refers to the zodiac sign of Aquarius, the sign of the Aquarius god of the underworld, and to the idea of meeting together, or joining together, in ancient Vedic literature.
The largest one-day attendance was 30 million on 10 February 2013, and 50 million on 4 February 2019. The word is found in the Vedic texts, often in the context of holding water about immortality. For example, in verse 10 of Rigveda, for example, the Yajurveda verse 16, 16ajurvaveda verse 6, 3, 6, 7; verse 3 of Samaveda, 19 53 53 53, and verse 6 of the AtharvavedA verse 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 58 and 59, 59 and 58, 60 and 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 63 and 62, 64 and 63, 65, 69, 68, 70, 69 and 68, 68 and 69, 70 and 70, 72, 73, 74, 78, 79, 80, 78 and 79, 79 and 80, 82, 81, 82 and 82, 83, 84, 83 and 84, 84 and 83, 81 and 88, 84. The exact years have been a subject of dispute in the 20th-century. The gap between Prayag and HaridWAR festivals is about 6 years, and both feature a Maha and Ardha Kumb h Mela.
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This page is based on the article Kumbh Mela published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 29, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
