The Kumbh Mela (Festival of the Urn) in Allahabad, India was a landmark event in human history. This great roving religious festival has moved around India for more than four thousand years, erecting temporary cities along the meandering Ganges River and shaping the role history and spiritual memory play in human consciousness. Lasting 44 days in 2001, it was not just the final Kumbh Mela in a 12-year cycle of festivals. It was the final festival of 12 cycles – the conclusion of a vast 144-year cycle, making it “Maha” Kumbh Mela, the “Great” Festival. Even the planets and stars joined in, providing heavenly alignments not seen for 144 years. An estimated seventy million people came from all over the world, each one praying for peace and rebirth for oneself and for the Planet.
Watching Kumbh Mela: Songs of the River, the viewers find themselves in a mesmerizing spectacle of crowds, smoke, dust, and noise, without intrusive or interpretive narration. The film carries viewers from the crush of frenzied crowds to a surreal dreamlike grace and cinematic meditation.
Featuring: His Holiness the Dalai Lama, female Japanese guru Yogamata Keiko Aikawa, African anthropologist Oldoinyo Laetolile Baaba, Dr. Andrew Weil, Yogi Pilot Baba, and the distinguished BBC reporter, Sir Mark Tully.
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Wow! Who knew? We hear about the Haj at Mecca which draws a couple of million pilgrims, but who knew that the Kumbh Mela in India drew 70 million?!! Seventy million Hindu pilgrims! Not to mention thousands of naked holymen doing all sorts of bizarre penances to God! The film is a visual journey and a feast for the imagination. Brilliant, colorful cinematography depicting a strange gathering in a strange land. A must have for anyone interested in cultural anthropology, India, or spirituality. Might have been made better with more documentary information (for example I found out this religious gathering has been going on–its held every 12 years– since 3464 BC!) and possibly the integration of some still images on which to linger a bit in mid-marvel. All in all a wonderful and fascinating experience. (By the way I found a wonderfully informative and funny story about the Kumbh on a web mag called theArtichoke.org.)
“Expressions Of The One Truth” ~ Disneyland Of The Divine Travel with filmmaker Nadeem Uddin to Mother India on his journey to Allahabad located at the confluence of two sacred rivers, the Ganges and Jamuna. You are on a spiritual pilgrimage to the final mela in a series of festivals that occurs only once every 144 years. Walk amongst the estimated 70 million pilgrims in the sweltering heat as they descend upon their appointed destination.Open your mind and heart and take a deep breath before you dare enter into a realm of the spirit quite foreign to Occidental sensibilities. It’s here amidst the noise and smoke, the pungent fragrances and endless chanting that the visual and olfactory assault will soon begin. Nude ascetics will surround you on all sides and strange, exotic smells will confront your nostrils. In some quarters of the festival bizarre and disturbing exhibitions of self-mutilation will be exhibited while a female avatar dances with cobras and a prospective guru is buried underground for three days in a state of samadi as an offering for universal harmony. Situations very unnerving for the uninitiated traveler.Congratulations you have arrived at the largest gathering of humanity in the history of the world! It’s the 2001 ‘Maha Kumbh Mela’ let the purification begin!This is an amazing and beautiful spiritual documentary and an essential addition to the DVD library of anyone fascinated by the diverse and sometimes unfathomable nature of faith in all its various modes of expression. Definitely not for the closed minded.