The festival (Allahabad)

Member Name:

Product:	Allahabad
Date:	12/01/01 (28 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: never will be seen anywhere else

Disadvantages: its hard to get accomadation

I have scoured the net to bring as much information together of this amazing festivel. Hope this will be helpful

On 6 February 1989 an estimated fifteen million pilgrims traveled to Allahabad in India on the occasion of the most recent full Kumbh Mela there. According to The Guiness Book of Records, this was the "greatest recorded number of human beings assembled with a common purpose" in history. The Kumbh Mela is held by turns in four different cities in India: Allahabad, Hardwar, Ujjain, and Nasik. The festival is conducted in each of these cities every dozen years or so. On 14 April 1998 the population of Hardwar in North India swelled to the breaking point with the addition of an estimated ten million pilgrims who had come to bathe in the Ganges. Hardwar is a town about a hundred miles north of Delhi in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
The center of the pilgrimage in Hardwar is a large camp across the Ganges River from the main ghat. Prominent among the religious groups that regularly return to the Kumbh every twelve years are those from renunciant communities. On the main bathing day they lead pilgrims in the millions in a parade from the camp down to the ghat to bathe in the Ganges. The goal of the bathers at the Hardwar Kumbh Mela is a ghat of the Ganges known as the Brahma Kund, which is sometimes held to be a place where some of the ambrosia of immortality was spilled in the primeval tug of war between the gods and demons. As such, this would be a particularly propitious place to escape the pains of rebirth.
.

Kumbh Mela dates back to the creation of the universe. Mythological legendsstate that the gods and demons once churned the oceans to retrieve the Kumbh (pot) containing the nectar of immortality (Amrit) As Dhanwantari, the divine healer appeared with the “Kumbh” containing nectar in his palms, a great fight followed between the Gods and the Demons to wrest the pitcher. During the fierce battle in the
sky, a few drops of nectar fell in four different places: Allahabad, Haridwar, Nasik and Ujjain. Since, these four scared places have witnessed the Kumbh and Ardh Kumbh fairs periodically, every twelfth and sixth year when pilgrims and devotees converge to commemorate this divine event.

The Auspicious Dates in which the holy saints will take their dip in the Holy River Ganges.
09th January 2001, Paush Purnima
14th January 2001, Makar Sankranti
24th January 2001, Mauni Amavasya
29th January 2001, Basant Panchami
08th February 2001, Magh Purnima
21st February 2001, Mahashivratri

This is the most amazing site i have ever seen, a marvel of the power of religion

Summary: