Kumbh Mela

The practice

Kumbh Mela is a vast pilgrimage festival held in rotation at four cities on sacred rivers: Prayagraj, Haridwar, Nashik, and Ujjain. Its myth tells of gods and demons fighting over a pitcher, a kumbh, of the nectar of immortality, and drops falling at the four sites.

How it is kept

The heart of the festival is the shahi snan, the royal bath, when processions of monks and pilgrims enter the river on astrologically chosen days. The largest gatherings, at the meeting of the Ganges, the Yamuna, and the unseen Saraswati at Prayagraj, have drawn tens of millions of bathers in a single season.

What it means

Bathing at the sangam, the confluence, is believed to wash away sin and free the soul from the cycle of rebirth. For a few weeks a temporary city of tents becomes one of the largest cities on earth, built entirely around a river and a bath.