Facts about Kumbh Mela 2019

1. The Kumbh Mela is held every three years, and switches between four different locations Haridwar (river Ganga), Prayag (Triveni sangam of Yamuna, Ganga and Saraswati), Ujjain (river Kshipra),  and Nasik (river Godavari)

2. The mela returns to each location after a span of 12 years.

3. The Kumbh Mela is held on the dates when the waters of these sacred rivers are said to turn into nectar. The exact dates are calculated according to a combination of zodiac positions of Jupiter, the Sun and the Moon.

4. The Kumbh Mela in Allahabad in 2013 attracted a record crowd of approximately 10 crore people!

5. Several holy men from different Hindu sects attend the mela, such as the Nagas(who do not wear any clothes),Kalpwasis (who bathe thrice a day) and Urdhawavahurs (who believe in putting the body through severe austerities). They come to the mela to perform sacred rituals pertaining to their respective groups.

6.  The festival is over 2000 years old! The first written evidence of the mela can be found in the accounts of the Chinese traveller Xuanzang, who visited India during the reign of King Harshavardhana.

7. The mela creates approximately 650,000 jobs and was estimated to earn around Rs 12,000 crore in 2013 too!

8. The largest makeshift city:
As per the Uttar Pradesh Government, the Ardh Kumbh Mela will be the largest temporary city in the world. Flyovers, 250 km long roads, parking lots and around 22 pontoon bridges have been constructed for the Mela, which is spread across 3,200 hectares of ground.

9. The Uttar Pradesh Government had allocated Rs 2800 crores as the budget for the 2019 Kumbh Mela, however, the expenditure has gone up to Rs 4,300 crore.