Kumbh Mela

Maha Kumbh Mela - Allahabad - 4-8 Feb 2001

The Kumbh Melas, which occur every 3 years, are easily the largest gatherings of people on the planet. This mela was extra special -- a Maha Kumbh Mela, coinciding with a planetary alignment which occurs only once every 144 years. For that reason, it was especially well attended. According to the state of Uttar Pradesh's Kumbh Mela website, 1.5 million people lived at the Kumbh 'township', and the total attendance over the months of January and February was about 100 million people. Even more incredible is their statistic of 30.5 million pilgrims taking their dip in the Sangam on one day -- Jan 24, the the most auspicious of all the 'bathing days'. Some 1741 people were interred in the one-site hospitals. No one, apparently, was killed.
According to ancient Hindu tradition, bathing at the confluence (Sangam) of the three sacred rivers (Ganges, Yamuna, and the markedly less visible Saraswati) at Allahabad will purify the body and the soul and leave one free from the continuous cycle of birth and death. That sounds too dangerous to me, but many among our company took full advantage of the opportunity.

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arrival, late afternoon, 4 Feb

through the bus window
(note dashboard shrine)

   ...

Joy, Rick, Joe, Mary, Harvey, WA

Sonya.... Irma [photo by Joy B.]

Sonya...Joe [photo by Joy B.]

   In the evening the Kumbh became a city of lights, and more than anything, smoke, as tens of thousands of families cooked their evening meals and vendors burned trash. It's as if the Kumbh was taking place in the middle of a gigantic forest fire. Respirator masks were the order of the evening, but they were hardly enough. We found a little shop near the bright lights in the pictures above that sold the heavy green shawls that Joe and Rick and Warren are wearing above. They helped a lot, though the only way to really get away from the smoke was to crawl into one's tent. People tended to go to bed early. The days, by contrast, were (extremely) sunny and mercifully smoke-free.

YSS cantina

Mary outside the women's tent

taxi

Mary & Warren, in front of YSS camp

ritual head-shaving, en route to Sangam

barbers at work

purveyors of empty water bottles

elephant!

river Yamuna, near the Sangam

river Yamuna, near the Sangam

Leonor, Elaine, Djien, Fred, Mary L., Phil, Harvey, Susan

boats at the Sangam

out-of-town pilgrims

Sangam: Harvey and Mary

Sangam dip

after the dip

our oursman, rowing us
back to shore from the Sangam

satellite photo, taken 23 Jan, showing Ganges entering at top, and Jamuna at left, with vast Kumbh encampment at upper right.
Click here for a very large (2MB) image.

Mary Ellen making friends

collecting rice

snake...

...charmer

pilgrims departing Kumbh for Allahabad

pontoon bridge over Ganges

jam session (WA)

YSS cantina, under the railroad bridge

Warren and Rick

one of dozens of encampments

another organization's camp

YSS meditation tent

woman's tent at the YSS camp
- Sherry & Sharon

local transport

pontoon bridge - Kumbh grounds in background

looking back toward the Kumbh grounds from nearby hillside

delicious potato patties

nandi bayl - fortune telling bull

looking back at the Kumbh site, Sangam in background

Mary Ellen, Theresa

Mary A., Harvey

smoker

smokees
- YSS women, Mary Ellen, Mary A.

camping smokers

Susan, Paul, Harvey, Shelly, Trish, Mary, WA
- photo courtesy Djien So

sign explaining the 'Babaji Tree'

Babaji Tree
- photo courtesy Mary Lail

Babaji Tree
- photo courtesy Mary Lail

Trish, Mary, Susan, Mary Lail at Babaji Tree

Babaji Tree

the YSS devotees
who led us to the Babaji tree

pilgrims and YSS comrades
- photo courtesy Mary Lail