Kumbh Mela

English

Alternative forms

• Kumbha Mela

Etymology

Borrowed from Hindustani کُن٘بھ میلَہ (kuṉbh mela) / कुंभ मेला (kumbh melā). Related to kumbha and mela.

Proper noun

Kumbh Mela (plural Kumbh Melas)

1. A Hindu festival, held every twelve years at four locations in India, at which pilgrims bathe in the Ganges and Yamuna rivers for purification from sin.
   • 2005, Kartar Sing hBhalla, Let's Know Festivals of India, →ISBN, page 7:

     Kumbh Mela (The Pot Fair) is a sacred Hindu pilgrimage and a religious festival where millions of sadhus, pilgrims, and devotees come for historical ritual bathing at four sites on the banks of Rivers Ganga, Yamuna, Saraswati, Godavari and Shipra, considered sacrad.

   • 2010, Badri Narain, Kedar Narain, Christopher N. Burchett, Kumbh Mela and the Sadhus: The Quest for Immortality, →ISBN:

     Kumbh Mela is the single largest religious congregation or, in fact, human gathering of any kind on Earth.

   • 2013, Tahir Shah, Three Essays: Cannibalism, The Kumbh Mela, The Legacy of Arab Science, →ISBN:

     Once every twelve years a great Kumbh Mela takes place, when the propitious timing is amplified many thousands of times over. And, in keeping with the lunar cycles, every twelfth great Kumbh Mela is the 'Maha' -- held ever 144 years.

   • 2021 April 20, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, “Kumbh 2021: Astrology, Mortality and the Indifference to Life of Leaders and Stars”, in The Wire‎^[1], archived from the original on 9 January 2021:

     Kumbh Melas are held every 12 years. The last Haridwar Kumbh Mela was held in 2010.