Allahabad and Triveni Sangam
Picture 1: Boats lined up at the Triveni Sangam, Prayag, Allahabad with pilgrims and tourists. I have been to Allahabad last week and saw the site of the famous Kumba Mela at Prayag, also known as the Triveni Sangam. Hundreds of thousands of people come, as their forebears had come for thousands of years from all over India, to bathe at the confluence of Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical river, Saraswathi. Having visited in the winter season, I was fortunate enough to see migratory birds from Siberia playing and feeding in the Yamuna (See Picture 4). A dip at the Triveni Sangam is believed to break the cycle of rebirth and save one's soul. References to these ceremonial baths can be found in the accounts of Chinese Pilgrims who visited India some thirteen hundred years ago and even then these Melas were ancient and lost in an unknown antiquity. When you approach the Sangam from land, what welcomes you is a massive fort built by the great emperor Akbar. T...