The Maha Kumbh Proves Hinduism Is A Dynamic, Living Faith

As the Maha Kumbh draws to a close, its positive impact on India and Sanatan Dharma will endure for a long time. The global media has marveled at the largest gathering of people ever witnessed in human history.

- NITIN MEHTA

The Maha Kumbh is so massive it can be seen from space. American astronaut Don Pettit, who is on an extended stay at the International Space Station, posted photos to social media platform X, with the caption: "The largest human gathering in the world is well lit." Humongous, behemoth, juggernaut—whatever adjective you use falls short of what the world has just witnessed. The Maha Kumbh cast a mojo over Hindus as well as non-Hindus.

According to Deepak Kumar Sen, author of the "Divine Kumbh," the first written evidence of the Kumbh Mela was mentioned in the travelogue of Xuanzang or Hsuan Tsang, a Chinese Buddhist monk and scholar who traveled to India circa 630 AD, during the reign of the famous Hindu king Harshvardhan. In his eyewitness account, he wrote that, "Half a million people had gathered on the banks of the Ganges at Prayagraj during the Hindu month of Magha for Kumbh Mela."

The King, along with his ministers, scholars, philosophers, and sages, participated in the Mela celebrations, where he distributed gems and jewels, gold, silver, and even his clothes, in charity. American writer and humourist Mark Twain wrote after visiting the Kumbh Mela in 1895: "It is wonderful, the power of a faith like that, that can make multitudes upon multitudes of the old and weak and the young and frail enter without hesitation or complaint upon such incredible journeys and endure the resultant miseries without repining. It is done in love, or it is done in fear; I do not know which it is. No matter what the impulse is, the act born of it is beyond imagination, marvelous to our kind of people, the cold whites."

In 2017, UNESCO placed the Kumbh Mela on its listing of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The budget for this year's festival was an estimated $800 million, and analysts estimate it will boost economic growth by $30 billion to $35 billion in Uttar Pradesh.

Logistics of Planning Kumbh Mela