Take Me to the River

Millions of pilgrims flock to Hinduism's largest festival to bathe in the Ganges' purifying waters.

By Jono Lineen

Last April, I sat in predawn darkness on the banks of the Ganges, watching as wave after wave of pilgrims descended to the winter-chilled river. From villages and cities all over India and Nepal, more than 10 million of the faithful converged on Haridwar to celebrate the Kumbha Mela, the largest and most important celebration in the Hindu world. Held every three years, with the site rotating between the cities of Haridwar, Allahabad, Nasik, and Ujjain, the festival has always drawn sadhus (wandering ascetics or holy people) and Hindu householders from all over the subcontinent, but modern transportation has transformed the Kumbha Mela into perhaps the largest periodic gathering on the globe.

The mythological roots of the festival stretch back to the Hindu epics and their stories of endless wars between gods and demons. In one battle, the demons gained possession of a golden chalice (kumbh) containing the nectar of immortality and omnipotence. Through clever trickery the gods recovered the chalice, but in their haste to escape, four precious drops of nectar fell to Earth, consecrating the four sites of the Kumbha Mela (Festival of the Urn or Chalice).

Although the history of the Kumbha Mela is more obscure than its myth, the festival appears to be ancient. A Greek account from the fourth century B.C. and a Chinese one from the sixth century A.D. describe gatherings much like today's.

Tradition holds that the famous ninth-century sage Shankaracharya organized the festival, encouraging all the different monastic and philosophical schools to attend and exchange views. These gatherings quickly attracted many religiously minded lay people, and fourteenth-century records of the festival include all its key modern elements: the ritual bathing, the congregating of sadhus, and the hordes of pilgrims. Through times of Moslem and British domination, the Kumbha Mela helped preserve and vitalize Hinduism, and the modern festival still provides an occasion for Hindus of all schools to converge and celebrate the diversity of their religion.

The Pull of the Ganges

At the heart of every pilgrim's festival lies a ritual plunge into the holy river. Purity forms one of the cornerstones of Hindu thought and practice, and bathing in one of the Kumbha Mela's three holy rivers at such an auspicious time restores the pilgrims' purity, recalls them to their intention to live a godly life, and helps ensure an auspicious reincarnation. Haridwar's river, the Ganges, is the most important of all. Known throughout India as Ganga Mai (Mother Ganges), the river is revered as a goddess.

Haridwar marks the passage of the Ganges from the Himalayas onto the vast North Indian plains. The course of the river is compared to the life of the goddess, from her birth in a Himalayan spring to her death in the Bay of Bengal, where she merges with the ocean. By bathing at Haridwar where the goddess comes of age, the faithful hope to cleanse their souls with her youthful purity while simultaneously absorbing her maturing spiritual energy.

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