page_title: Kumbh Mela
section_title: Locations
hierarchical_section_title: Kumbh Mela / Calendar, locations and preparations / Locations
caption_attribution_description: On the way back from a weekend of river rafting in Rhishikesh we stopped in Haridwar, because the Aarti ceremony was soon about to start. It was an amazing experience with this huge number of people and all the lights. Some of my Indian colleagues took a dip in the water. Few of them even did the 100 dips. The picture was taken with a Canon Ixus and just placing it on the edge of a bridge, so unfortunately it is not totally sharp. See where this picture was taken. [][?]
context_page_description: Kumbh Mela or Kumbha Mela is a major pilgrimage and festival in Hinduism. It is celebrated in a cycle of approximately 12 years at four river-bank pilgrimage sites: the Allahabad, Haridwar, Nashik, and Ujjain. The festival is marked by a ritual dip in the waters, but it is also a celebration of community commerce with numerous fairs, education, religious discourses by saints, mass feedings of monks or the poor, and entertainment spectacle. The seekers believe that bathing in these rivers is a means to prāyaścitta for past mistakes, and that it cleanses them of their sins.
  The festival is traditionally credited to the 8th-century Hindu philosopher Adi Shankara, as a part of his efforts to start major Hindu gatherings for philosophical discussions and debates along with Hindu monasteries across the Indian subcontinent. However, there is no historic literary evidence of these mass pilgrimages were called "Kumbha Mela" prior to the 19th-century.
context_section_description: Numerous sites and fairs have been locally referred to be their Kumbh Melas. Of these, four sites are broadly recognised as the Kumbh Melas: Allahabad, Haridwar, Trimbak-Nashik and Ujjain. Other locations that are sometimes called Kumbh melas – with the bathing ritual and a significant participation of pilgrims – include Kurukshetra, and Sonipat.
caption: Kumbh Mela at Haridwar.
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