The spectacular mela was held on Sunday — eve of the 9/11 anniversary — at the University of California Irvine’s Bren Centre.
NEW YORK: Thousands of chanting Hindus were sprinkled with water collected from Indian rivers in a symbolic recreation of mass bathing during the first-ever Kumbh Mela held in the United States.
The spectacular mela was held on Sunday — eve of the 9/11 anniversary — at the University of California Irvine’s Bren Centre with the aim of ushering in world peace by “infusing collective positive energy.” Over 18 organisations from southern California took part in the event, which featured a quarter-mile-long procession with an estimated 4,000 chanting marchers, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
The procession ended at Bren Centre where a portable pond filled with water from 21 rivers in India was created. Water from the pond was later sprinkled on the devotees. Participants were also treated to rice cooked in hundreds of Hindu households that was carried to the university.
“We hope the celebration, held on the day before 9/11, can bring positive energy and peace to the earth,” one of the organisers, Rama Kumar, told the Times.
Considered the most sacred of all Hindu pilgrimages, the mela was held under the auspices of Paramahamsa Nithyananda, Nithyananda Foundation; Swami Ishwarananda, Chinmaya Mission; Swami Sarvadevananda, Vedanta Society; Dr. Acharya Yogeesh, Yogeesh Ashram; and the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh.
In India, the mela is held four times every 12 years and rotates between Prayag (Allahabad), Haridwar, Ujjain and Nashik. Each 12-year cycle includes one Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, attended by millions of devotees making it the largest gathering anywhere in the world.
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