PB May 2013.Indd

An Amazing Phenomenon Called the Kumbha Mela Swami Ishadhyanananda f there is any word in English capable of No wonder that Harvard University sent a D giving a general idea of what a Kumbha Mela multidisciplinary team of fifty faculty members, RASA P is like, it is this: incredible. You might have staff, and researchers to study and document the SIBA I visited many melas, fairs, in your lifetime, big phenomenon—‘The Mapping of the Kumbha BY and small, but if you visit a Kumbha Mela, like Mela’, as they call it. The ‘pop-up megacity’, as the one held at Allahabad from 14 January to this team prefers to refer to the Kumbha kshetra, OF 2013, 10 March 2013, you will be amazed to find that place, that springs up on the dusty sands to house mela no other fair comes anywhere near it—of course, hundreds of thousands of sadhus and millions A H for those with a religious bent of mind. of their followers for fifty-five days, is a source KUMB At the Kumbha Mela ‘every day is a surprise’, of amazement. E said Yuri, who had come all the way from Japan To have a first-hand experience of this unique to witness the mela. And she is not the only one phenomenon we visited Allahabad—also called W OF TH IE surprised; more than ten lakh of tourists from Prayag—from 7 to 11 February 2013. When abroad visited the Kumbha Mela this year to ex- we alighted at the Allahabad Railway Station, PHOTO: V PHOTO: perience the world’s largest human congregation. little could we imagine what lay ahead. Once PB May 2013 337 32 Prabuddha Bharata outside the station we started having a hunch thousand camps belonging to different akharas, of the grandeur of the mela; a huge number of ashramas, societies, and religious leaders had passengers waited outside the station looking sprung up. The 56 sq km Kumbha City had been for a means of transport to go to the Kumbha divided into 14 sectors, each sector having hun- kshetra. When we got a vehicle, after one hour or dreds of camps. The prominent places had been so, and started moving towards the camp of the allotted to the akharas and important ashramas Ramakrishna Mission, we could see the many of the monks belonging to the Dashanami Sam- temporary offices that had been set up by the pradaya, the ten monastic orders founded by government to facilitate the movement of the Acharya Shankara in the eighth century ce. crowds. Even three days prior to the shahi snan, The very large camps of several akharas, with main bath, on Mauni Amavasya, new moon, it capacity to accommodate in one sitting thou- took us more than one hour to reach our camp, sands of people who go there to listen to re- barely 4 km away from the station! ligious discourses, were situated towards the fringes of the city. The Arrangements The entire area had 22,000 temporary elec- On the riverbank at the Sangam—the conflu- trical poles, having two large halogen lights and ence of the three holy rivers Ganga, Yamuna, four loudspeakers on each of them—the halogen and the mythical Sarasvati—a city of about ten lights flooded the city with a yellowish light, and Avenue and tents at the Kumbha Mela of 2013 People spending the night under the trees during the Kumbha Mela of 2013 the speakers continuously announced the names enough for vehicles to pass over. Apart from the of lost-and-found people. But what amazed us flowing crowds, a good number of pilgrims— the most was the absence of shops in such a huge mostly from the rural areas of Uttar Pradesh, congregation! Many of us cannot imagine a mela Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan—stay at without any shops. Business is one of the biggest the Kumbha kshetra, especially on the days be- motivations for holding a mela, but when it comes fore the shahi snans. They just stay anywhere in to the Kumbha Mela, except for a few tea vend- the grounds, indifferent to the harsh North In- ors, one cannot find any other shop around—not dian winter. It matters little for them where they even food stalls. What was the arrangement for stay; rather, they consider it a blessing to be able foods for the pilgrims then? Anna sattras, dole to spend some time in the holy kshetra. Many of houses. Many camps provide the pilgrims good them spend the nights listening to religious dis- quality food free of charge, right from breakfast courses, which go on round the clock, mostly on to dinner. Apart from that, countless families just the Bhagavata and the Ramayana. It is wonder- sit on the ground and cook very simple food in ful that at any given moment hundreds, if not small earthen ovens, offer the food to God, and thousands, open-to-all discourses are going on A partake of the prasad. at the Kumbha City, each camp vying to attract PT U Where do the pilgrims stay? Most of the pil- as many pilgrims as possible. Both the acts of giv- G AS grims are flowing. They enter into the Kumbha ing religious discourses and listening to them at a D EK H kshetra through any of the several inlets, take a holy place are considered extremely meritorious IS H holy bath at the Sangam, offer their prayers, and by the Hindus. AB move away. To facilitate the movement of the Among the crowds one can see countless BY crowds the government has constructed eight- urban Indians and foreigners, who booked their PHOTO een pontoons, floating bridges, which are wide lodgings in any of the thousands of camps. All PB May 2013 339 PHOTO C The Akharas forces can be. At every cross- ERS ing, in front of every camp, T One of the greatest attractions O REU UR Y moving along with every T of the Kumbha Mela is the dif- Mahamandaleshvar—virtu- ESY ferent akharas, which are the R PHOTO B ally everywhere—more than AMAK chief stakeholders of the mela. 30,000 police personnel and R In fact, it can be said that the I S paramilitary forces were ac- HNA Kumbha Mela is a festival of M tively providing safety to I monks belonging to different SS millions of pilgrims. Above ION akharas. What is an akhara? all, they were cordial and ex- SE An akhara, which literally VA S tremely cooperative—it seems H means a wrestling place, is like R to be written on their faces ALLAHABADAMA, an organization of regimented that providing security at the monks. When India was Kumbha Mela is as sacred an under Muslim rule the sann- Candidates from an akhara before receiving sannyasa at the Kumbha Mela of 2013 Ramakrishna Mission camp at the Kumbha Mela of 2013 act as taking a dip at the San- yasins were often attacked by gam. There is no doubt that Muslims mullahs and soldiers. To protect them- called Nagas, which means ‘naked’—they in fact the camps have small and big tents for living, one of the major reasons for the Kumbha Mela’s selves, the monks of the Dashanami Sampradaya maintain the tradition of remaining naked even makeshift toilets, and dining spaces for the dele- success is the efficient and amiable service by recruited militant monks from ordinary people today, with their bodies heavily smeared with gates; most of them have bookstalls and pan- the police. as well as ex-soldiers. These militant monks were ashes; they undertake rigorous physical practices, dals, temporary sheds, for religious discourses Pontoon bridges at the Kumbha Mela of 2013 learn fighting and the use of arms, dwell near tem- too. The camp erected by the Ramakrishna Mis- ples or in huts, and come before the public only sion, which is but one of the modest camps, held during Kumbha Melas. intra-faith meetings of different denominations In order to take part in the procession for the belonging to the Sanatana Dharma, treated shahi snan, which is a big affair and one of the more than 20,000 patients at its dispensary, main attractions of the mela, each monastery distributed 500 blankets to the needy, set up a belonging to the Dashanami Sampradaya should bookstall and an exhibition, and accommodated be affiliated to a particular akhara. The ten orders hundreds of monks and thousands of devotees are: Aranya, Ashrama, Bharati, Giri, Parvata, during the mela. Puri, Sagara, Sarasvati, Tirtha, and Vana. They Another surprising thing once you enter the have four headquarters in India: Joshi Math in Kumbha kshetra is its road system: 156 km of the north, Sringeri in the south, Dwaraka in the steel-plated roads have been laid down to cover west, and Govardhan Math in the east. Under the entire area. The roads are straight, wide, run these four headquarters there are several mon- parallel to each other, and act as an immense asteries, called maths or ashramas, that are affili- grid that sectors the kshetra. They are kept clean ated to one or the other akharas. by many volunteers and government employees There are seven Shaiva akharas overlapping who often sprinkle them with water and, frankly with the Dashanami Sampradaya of monks: speaking, are wider and cleaner than many of the Agni, Atal, Avahan, Bhairava, Juna, Mahanir- roads of India’s metropolitan cities. vani, and Niranjani. The head of an akhara is The Kumbha Mela is a lesson on how effi- called the Acharya Mahamandaleshvar, or the cient and helpful the police and paramilitary Pithadhish; he is a learned monk belonging to 340 341 Aerial view of Allahabad taken during the Kumbha Mela of 2013 the Dashanami Sampradaya and is elected by the counter the verbal attacks—they had learnt only Mahamandal eshvars from among themselves at military practices to deal with the physical at- the time of a Kumbha Mela.

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