Sat Ma­haraj

Thou­sands of Hin­dus in Trinidad gath­er each year at our beach­es and the wa­ter­ing ar­eas to cel­e­brate the Kar­tic Na­han fes­ti­val. This year it falls on No­vem­ber 28. In In­dia, how­ev­er, the wa­ter fes­ti­vals at­tract tens of mil­lions of Hin­du devo­tees. Ac­cord­ing to Wikipedia, Kumbh Mela (kom 'mela) is a mass Hin­du pil­grim­age in which Hin­dus gath­er at the Ganges and riv­er Go­davari, where bathing for pu­rifi­ca­tion of sin is con­sid­ered es­pe­cial­ly ef­fi­ca­cious.

The Ardh (half) Kumbh Mela is cel­e­brat­ed every six years at Harid­war and Al­la­habad, the Pur­na (com­plete) Kumbh takes place every 12 years, at four places, Al­la­habad, Harid­war, Uj­jain and Nashik. The Ma­ha (great) Kumbh Mela which comes af­ter 12 Pur­na Kumbh Melas, or 144 years, is held at Al­la­habad.

Ac­cord­ing to the Mela ad­min­is­tra­tion's es­ti­mates, around 70 mil­lion peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed in the 45-day Ardh Kumbh Mela in Al­la­habad, in 2007 and it is an­tic­i­pat­ed that 80 mil­lion Hin­dus will par­tic­i­pate in Jan­u­ary-Feb­ru­ary, 2013. The Ma­ha Sab­ha will send a del­e­ga­tion of 25 pun­dits to at­tend the Kumbh Mela at the in­vi­ta­tion of the Vish­wa Hin­du Parishad and the Board of Trustees and the gov­ern­ing coun­cil.

Its in­ter­na­tion­al chair­man Ashook Sin­gal vis­it­ed Trinidad re­cent­ly and has e-mailed us say­ing, "I would love to ex­tend a cor­dial in­vi­ta­tion to the del­e­ga­tion to stay at our Vish­wa Parishad Camp at the Kumbh city of tents at the Triveni Sang­nam (where the three holy rivers meet) to at­tend the pro­gramme and al­so in­ter­nalise first-hand the in­ter­nal and di­vine spir­it of the world fa­mous Kumbh Mela."

Kumbh Mela is cel­e­brat­ed at dif­fer­ent lo­ca­tions de­pend­ing on the po­si­tion of the plan­et of Brhas­pati (Jupiter) and the sun. When Jupiter and the sun are in the zo­di­ac sign Leo (Simha­Rashi) it is held in Trim­bakesh­war­Nashik. When the sun is in Aries (Me­sha­Rashi) it is cel­e­brat­ed at Harid­war; when Jupiter is in Tau­rus (Vr­ishab­ha­Rashi) and the sun is in Capri­corn (Makar­Rashi) Kumbh Mela is cel­e­brat­ed at Prayag.

When Jupiter and the sun are in Scor­pio (Vr­ishchikRashi) the Mela is cel­e­brat­ed at Uj­jain. The first writ­ten ev­i­dence of the Kumbh Mela can be found in the ac­counts of Chi­nese trav­eller, Huan Tsang or Xu­an­zang (602-664 AD) who vis­it­ed In­dia in 629-645 CE.

How­ev­er, sim­i­lar ob­ser­vances date back many cen­turies, where the riv­er fes­ti­vals first start­ed get­ting or­gan­ised. Ac­cord­ing to an­cient Hin­du the­ol­o­gy, its ori­gin is found in one of the most pop­u­lar me­dieval pu­ranas, the Bha­ga­va­ta Pu­rana. The Samu­dra­man­tham episode (Churn­ing of the ocean of milk), is men­tioned in the Bha­ga­va­ta Pu­rana, Vish­nu Pu­rana, the Ma­hab­hara­ta, and the Ra­mayana.

The ac­count goes that the demigods had lost their strength by the curse of Dur­vasa Mu­ni, and to re­gain it, they ap­proached lords Brah­ma, Vish­nu and Shi­va (Hin­du Trin­i­ty). Lord Vish­nu in­struct­ed them to churn the ocean of milk (Pri­mor­dial Ocean of milk) for am­ri­ta (the nec­tar of im­mor­tal­i­ty).

Ac­cord­ing to The Im­pe­r­i­al Gazetteer of In­dia, an out­break of cholera oc­curred at the 1892 Mela at Harid­war lead­ing to the rapid im­prove­ment of arrange­ments by the au­thor­i­ties and to the for­ma­tion of Harid­war Im­prove­ment So­ci­ety. In 1903 about 400,000 peo­ple are record­ed as at­tend­ing. Dur­ing the 1945 Kumbh Mela stam­pede at Prayag, around 500 peo­ple were killed and scores were in­jured.

Ten mil­lion peo­ple gath­ered at Harid­war for the Kumbh on April 14, 1998. The 1998 Kumbh Mela saw over ten mil­lion pil­grims vis­it­ing Hard­war, a city at the south­ern foothills of the Hi­malayas, to take a dip in the holy Ganges riv­er. In 2001, around one mil­lion peo­ple from out­side of In­dia and from around the world par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Ma­ha Kumbh Mela at Al­la­habad.

This Mela was very sig­nif­i­cant due to the plan­e­tary po­si­tions at the time, a pat­tern that re­peats on­ly once every 144 years. The ma­jor event of the fes­ti­vals is rit­u­al bathing at the banks of the riv­er in whichev­er town it was be­ing held. Oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties in­clude re­li­gious dis­cus­sions, de­vo­tion­al singing, mass feed­ing of holy men and women and the poor, and re­li­gious as­sem­blies where doc­trines are de­bat­ed and stan­dard­ised.

Kumbh Mela is the most sa­cred of all Hin­du pil­grim­ages where thou­sands of holy men and women at­tend. The sad­hus are seen clad in saf­fron robes with ash­es and pow­der dabbed on their skin ac­cord­ing to an­cient tra­di­tions. Some, called na­gasanya­sis, do not wear any clothes even in se­vere win­ter.

Af­ter vis­it­ing the Kumbh Mela of 1895, Mark Twain wrote: "It is won­der­ful, the pow­er of a faith like that, that can make mul­ti­tudes up­on mul­ti­tudes of the old and weak and the young and frail en­ter with­out hes­i­ta­tion or com­plaint up­on such in­cred­i­ble jour­neys and en­dure the re­sul­tant mis­eries with­out pin­ing.

It is done in love, or it is done in fear; I do not know which it is. No mat­ter what the im­pulse is, the act born of it is be­yond imag­i­na­tion, mar­velous to our kind of peo­ple, the cold whites."

Sat­narayan Ma­haraj

Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al

Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha