The recently concluded Maha Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj, India has not only been the largest sacred pilgrimage of the Hindus of the cultural and religious nature so far but also it set out multiple Guinness World Records, which include the events like the largest simultaneous river clean-up, the most volunteers in a single-site cleanliness drive, the most participants in a handprint painting, the longest handprint painting, and the largest group hymn chanting. The current Maha Kumbh festival started on 13 January and closed on 26 February 2025 with estimated visitors over 66 crore.
Historically, the Maha Kumbh Mela is considered as a sacred pilgrimage among the Hindus worldwide with a recurrence of every 12 years but the current Maha Kumbh became more significant because of the cosmic coincidence of planets which is believed to occur once only in every 144 years. Accordingly, the Uttar Pradesh Government had made massive and flawless arrangements to smoothly conduct the 45 days congregation (from 13 January to 26 February 2025) at the Prayagraj Triveni-Sangam (confluence of Rivers Ganga, Yamuna & Saraswati), which inter alia included five major bathing occasions known as Amrit Snans on 13 January, 29 January, 3 February, 12 February, and 26 February 2025.
I visited Triveni-Sangam at Prayagraj towards the close of festivities on 22 February attracted and impressed more with its cultural significance rather than the religiosity, and was really impressed to observe the mammoth zeal of pilgrims. Be it the river banks and bathing ghats, the approach roads of the incoming and outgoing people, or any other place at the Prayagraj, one could see only human heads with bodies in colourful attires everywhere. Even during the wee hours, it took over two hours from our place of stay to the Qila Ghat at the banks of the holy River, a distance of approximately fifteen kilometres.
We were taken in a boat to reach the bathing place i.e., the Triveni-Sangam, the confluence of the streams of River Ganga, Yamuna and mystical Saraswati. Accompanied with my son and a few others, we took a holy bath there in the early morning hour around 7.00 A.M., and as per convention collected Ganga Jal in a container we carried along. It indeed gave us a genuinely good feeling of being a part of the Sanatana Hindu heritage and cultural traditions. A few photographs marking the occasion are appended below.
Actually, the Prayagraj Kumbh Mela is part of the greater cycle of the Kumbh Melas as places of important Hindu pilgrimage organized at the intervals of three, six, twelve and one hundred fourty-four years in rotation among four sites, namely Prayagraj, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nashik. The site of these Melas is reckoned by the astronomical alignment of Jupiter, Sun and Moon. In mythology, the Maha Kumbh Mela symbolises the victory of devas (gods) over the asuras (demons). The recently concluded Maha Kumbh at Prayagraj has established the record of the assembly of the most numbers of devotees and saints at a place in the human history, representing not merely a religious gathering but also a convergence of faith, culture and history, with a significant economic value as well.
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