India kicks off huge Hindu festival billed as world’s largest religious gathering

The festival is a series of ritual baths performed by Hindu sadhus, or holy men, and other pilgrims at the confluence of three sacred rivers that date back to at least medieval times. Hindus believe that the mythical Saraswati River once flowed from the Himalayas through Prayagraj, where it met the Ganges and Yamuna.

Bathing takes place every day, but on the most auspicious dates, naked and ash-covered monks rush to the sacred rivers at dawn. Many pilgrims stay for the duration of the festival, observing austerity, giving alms, and bathing at sunrise each day.

“We feel at peace here and achieve salvation from the cycles of life and death,” said Bhagwat Prasad Tiwari, a pilgrim.

The festival has its roots in a Hindu tradition according to which the god Vishnu snatched from demons a golden pitcher containing the nectar of immortality. Hindus believe that a few drops fell in the towns of Prayagraj, Nasik, Ujjain and Haridwar, the four places where the Kumbh festival has been held for centuries.

The Kumbh rotates between these four pilgrimage sites approximately every three years on a date prescribed by astrology. This year’s festival is the biggest and grandest of all. A smaller version of the festival, called Ardh Kumbh, or Half Kumbh, was organized in 2019, when 240 million visitors were recorded, of whom around 50 million took a ritual bath on the busiest day.