Crores of people have visited MahaKumbh 2025 being held at Prayagaraj. I had not even thought about visiting or taking a dip until 20th Jan.
My daughter always up for listening to stories asked me randomly, Mom tell me stories about Khumbh and Maha Khumbh. Its then I opened internet to realize the magnitude of Maha Khumbh preparations.
The Mahakhumbh stories starts when the Devtas were looking for more resources but cant find it enough. So they decided to churn the ocean to get hold of the powerful and one of a kind resources. But the problem was how to churn it.
They collided with Rakshasha , seek help from Meru parvat, Vasuki nag as the rope and still the base of the churn was missing, hence Lord Vishnu took his second avatar in the form of a Kachap ( toutoise) to hold the Meru parvat on its back while it churns.
Including all the valuables, the most sort after was Amrit- The nector of immortality. It is said while Vishnu took another form of Mohini to ensure most of the Amrit is distributed with in the Devatas, 4 drops of the divine fluid spilled from the pot and fell on earth. The earth was not able to absorb these, hence the places it fell became unstable,, the drops were hence engulfed in earthen space and during specific celestial positioning it is expected that the earthen space will be exposed to human realm. Hence the ritual came to existence to take dip in the water where the earthen space comes very close to the human realm. These celestial positioning is alignment of Sun - The source of knowledge, Moon - The source of emotions, Jupitar - The Guru which guides us from darkness to light,, the light of knowledge.
While I was narrating the story of the Khumbh to my daughter, I get the feel of the calling to visit Khumbh. Next day I checked my project status, leaves and tickets.. and by the time my daughter returned from her school, My tickets were booked for the weekend of 31st Jan
I got my tickets for Varanasi and then Khumbh. On 25-26th I visited the place from where the drama started to bring Ganga down to earth - Ganga Sagar and the karma bhoomi of great sage Kapil Muni who propagated the tark shahtra,,," There should be a logical reasoning for every statement and action explained every time required. He emphasized that the job of a learned person is to convince other to perform any task by their logical reasoning, there is nothing like an order or I have said so you have to do it" The basis of Hindu philosophy...
Ganga sagar is the place where Ganga meets the ocean.. So without any plan I took a dip at the place where Ganga unites with Sagar, leaving her name and herself behind. As per the Purans, the 60k children of Raja Sagar were turned into ash by Kapil Muni because they were causing rukus at the Ashram at Ganga Sagar. When Raja Sagar came to know about it, he pleaded Kapil muni and asked for the salvation of his sons. Kapil muni mentioned, there will be a King+sage in your dynasty who with his karma will bring the celestial river Ganga on earth. The path of the ganga will be such that who so ever ash is flown with it, their soul will be free from the rebirth cycle. King Sagar went back and centuries later Bhagirath was born who played a crucial role in bringing Ganga to earth, Being a Lord Shiva fan and unable to part with him, She split herself into 8 parts. One of them through the matted hairs of Shiva came to Gangorti and made it way to all the places where Shiva resides to end in Ganga Sagar.
This laid back island town is fondly mentioned as सारे तीरथ बार-बार, गंगा सागर एक बार
Well fast forward one week later I was standing on cross road of Lohrabeer in Varanasi.. In my whole life I have not seen so much crowd. I realised not just thousands but the count goes in Lakhs of visitors per day in Varanasi, Ayodhya, Chikrakoot belt because of Mahakhumbh. I took a dip in Ganga again,, a place where our beloved Shankar resides with his partner Parvati. Looking at the line in front of Kashi vishwanth, i almost dropped the idea of visiting there. And turn of events was such that I ended up visiting Maha Mrityunjay mandir nearby collecting the amrut water as fondly said by many. And somehow Lor Vishwanath also gave darshan. The Varanasi trip was a unplanned, and surprising one.
Next day I took dip in Sangam and later in the evening went for a stroll in the mela. Went for darshan of the sangam at night. Next morning again I visited sangam in the mela area. Just wanted to see it and thank which ever power made me stand there. I came to know that the holy time of Basant panchami was to start at 10. I was planning to be out of mela region by 9-9.30 as I have a flight to catch. Somehow one of the person misguided me and I ended up in the other corner of mela. Only to realize that i have to walk back the whole route inside mela . Without wasting time, I turned around and started walking back. At 10 I was crossing the ponton bridge in front of Sangam. I could only smile on the realization of what just happened...
So here is my take of Khumbh
1. Crores gather to take a dip in water
2. People come, bathe, change clothes and go away
3. No pandit or rules and regulations or any discrimination
4. Nothing right and nothing wrong
5. There is no line, no one is coming first or last, no one shouts, no one complains, no one shy away, no one cares about anything or anyone
6. Few come for cleaning away their wrong doings, for salvation, for insta posts, for dharmic points, for experience, for learning, for satisfaction, for competing their bucketlist... and many more..
Today when I opened this to write I was thinking why I went there? and then it struck me hard,, I didnt went there.. I was supposed to be there at that moment and no where else.. I am meant to do something in this life, I am a catalyst for something , My presence there was meant to complete some tasks maybe very small but one thing is sure,, At Mahakhumbh "I felt Calm in Chaos" maybe its the presence of divine nector in our realm and i was so close to it.. that unknown to me,, it guided me to the path of knowledge
To summarize, I started to believe - The essence of Khumbh is in the Gayatri mantra
ॐ भूर्भुवः स्व: तत्सवितुर्वरेण्यं भर्गो देवस्य धीमहि धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात्
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