Kumbh Mela 2013

Kumbh Mela 2012

Kumbh Mela is the largest gathering of people for a religious purpose in the world. Millions of people gather on different places for this auspicious occasion. Kumbh is a Sanskrit word for Pitcher, sometimes referred to as the Kalasha. Kumbh Mela is celebrated four times every 12 years, the site of the observance rotating between four pilgrimage places on four sacred rivers: at Haridwar on the Ganges river, at Ujjain on the Shipra, at Nasik on the Godavari, and at Allahabad on the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and the mythical river Sarasvati. In 2013 from 27th January the Purna Kumbh Mela will be held on Allahabad which occurs every 12th year.

Beloved Premavatar Swami Vishwananda will be in India at the Kumbha Mela this year, 2013

Kumbh Mela 2012 
Kumbh Mela 60 Years Ago

“Few spectacles on Earth can compare to the great six-week Hindu pilgrimage, the ancient Kumbh Mela, during which literally tens of millions of people make their way to the river Ganges in order to bathe and worship. The 2013 Kumbh Mela takes place at Allahabad (Prayag) in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

Sixty years ago, in 1953, LIFE photographer James Burke chronicled an earlier Kumbh Mela in a series of pictures that, for reasons lost to time, were never published in the magazine. Here, in the midst of the 2013 Kumbh Mela, LIFE.com posts a series of those images — photos that capture something of the raw intensity and almost overwhelmingly sacral nature of the celebration’s rites.”

Read more: http://life.time.com/culture/kumbh-mela-rare-photos-from-an-ancient-religious-festival-1953/#ixzz2IzE8ZKix