Simhastha, the great gathering on the Shipra

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Namaste, and welcome to the fifth and last sitting of our series on Ujjain and Mahakaleshwar. Let us take a slow breath together, as we have each time.

We began this series with four brothers at Avanti, who kept their small daily worship through a difficult time. We heard of the cowherd boy Shrikara and his stone, sat with the name Mahakala, and stood before dawn for the Bhasma aarti. Last time we walked through the city, from the Shipra to Harsiddhi, Kaal Bhairav and the ashram of Sandipani. Today we come to the moment when Ujjain opens its doors to the whole country, the Simhastha.

Let us begin with the word Kumbh. A kumbh is a pot, a water vessel. The Kumbh Mela is a great gathering of pilgrims at a sacred river, held in turn at four places in India. These are Haridwar on the Ganga, Prayagraj where the Ganga and Yamuna meet, Nashik and Trimbakeshwar on the Godavari, and Ujjain on the Shipra. At each place the gathering comes around roughly once every twelve years.

At Ujjain, the Kumbh has its own name, Simhastha. Simha is the lion, the sign of Leo in the Indian zodiac. The Ujjain Kumbh is held when Brihaspati, the planet Jupiter, is in Simha. So the name itself carries the sky within it. After our second sitting, you will not be surprised that Ujjain's great festival is set by the movement of the planets.

We will not give any dates here, because these are worked out carefully each time. If you are thinking of going, please check the exact dates in a panchang and in the official announcements for Ujjain.

Why a pot? The story behind the Kumbh goes back to one of the best known accounts in the Puranas, the churning of the ocean.

Several Puranas, and the Mahabharata, tell how the gods and the asuras together churned the great ocean of milk, using a mountain as the churning rod and a great serpent as the rope. Many things rose from the ocean as they churned. At the end, the physician of the gods rose from the waters carrying a pot of amrit, the nectar of immortality. Both sides wanted it, and there was a struggle over the pot.

A popular tradition, widely told in connection with the Kumbh, adds that as the pot was carried away, drops of amrit fell at four places on earth. Those four places are the four sites of the Kumbh, and one of them is Ujjain. This detail about the four drops is not found plainly in the Puranic accounts of the churning themselves, as far as scholars have traced. It is a tradition that has grown around the Kumbh, and it is told with love by millions of people. We share it as that.

There is also a moment in the churning story that belongs very much to Shiva. Before the amrit appeared, a deadly poison rose from the ocean, and it threatened to destroy everything. The Puranas tell that Shiva drank it to protect the worlds, and held it in his throat, which turned blue. That is why he is called Nilakantha, the blue-throated one. It seems fitting that Mahakal's city is one of the places where the gathering of the Kumbh is held.

Now, what actually happens at the Simhastha?

For weeks, the banks of the Shipra fill with people. A temporary city of tents grows up on open ground. Sadhus and ascetics arrive from all over India, many of them belonging to akharas, the orders or fellowships of sadhus with their own long traditions. On the main bathing days, the akharas go in procession to the river, often with flags, drums and elephants or horses, and bathe first, before the general public. Then the families come, the villages, the elders on the arms of their grandchildren.

Between the bathing days, the camps are full of other things. Teachers give discourses. Kirtan and bhajan go on through the night. Community kitchens serve food to anyone who comes. Volunteers direct the crowds, clean the ghats, help lost children find their families. The city of Ujjain, and the state administration, work for a long time to prepare.

In Ujjain, the bathing happens at Ram Ghat, which we visited in our last sitting, and at many other ghats along the Shipra. Pilgrims usually go on to the Mahakaleshwar temple after bathing, and to the other temples of the city, so the whole of Ujjain becomes part of the gathering. Many families plan their visit for months, and some come on foot or by bullock cart from nearby villages, as their elders did.

A small note on respect. The sadhus of the akharas follow disciplines of their own, some very strict and some unfamiliar to most of us. If you wish to take a photograph, ask first, and accept a no without argument. If you sit to hear a discourse, sit as a listener. And remember that for the people of Ujjain, this is their home, which they share with the country for a few weeks.

If you ask people who have been what they remember, very few speak first of any single ritual. They speak of the scale of it, and of how gently strangers treated one another. An old woman sharing her food with a family she has never met. A young man carrying someone else's grandmother down the steps to the water. People from every part of India, speaking different languages, standing in the same river.

What does such a gathering mean? Different traditions and teachers give different answers, and we will not claim to give the last word. We can say what many devotees say.

For some, the bath in the Shipra at the Simhastha is a moment of cleansing, a chance to set down what they have carried and begin again. For some, it is about meeting the sadhus and teachers who come out of their seclusion only at such times. For many families, it is a promise kept, to parents or grandparents who went before and told them about it. And for others, it is simply the joy of being part of something very large and very old.

Whatever the reason, it asks something of each person. You travel, you wait, you walk long distances, you share space with people you would never otherwise meet. In that sense the Simhastha is a little like the story we began with. It is made of ordinary people doing a small, faithful thing, again and again, and together that becomes something the whole country remembers.

A word of care, if you plan to go. The crowds are very large. Go with a group, agree on a meeting point, and carry a note with your name and a family phone number, especially for children and elders. Follow the instructions of the administration and volunteers at all times. If you are elderly, pregnant, unwell, or taking regular medication, speak with your doctor before you plan the journey, and take rest when you need it. It is always all right to step back from a crowd.

Many people cannot travel to the Simhastha at all. In many families, those who stay home keep the day in their own way. On a main bathing day they bathe at home in the early morning, perhaps adding a few drops of river water kept from an earlier pilgrimage, and remember the Shipra with a short prayer. This is a family custom in many homes and it differs from place to place.

And so we come to the end of our time in Ujjain.

Over these five sittings we have heard the Shiva Purana's stories of Avanti, the four brothers and the boy Shrikara, and why Shiva is called Mahakala there, the great one beyond time. We have seen how this city became a zero line for Indian astronomers. We have stood in the dark for the Bhasma aarti and thought about what ash means. We have walked by the Shipra and visited the places around the temple. And today we have seen the river fill with people at the Simhastha.

What joins all of it, for us, is steadiness. The brothers kept their worship going. Shrikara kept his attention on his stone. The priests of Mahakaleshwar begin every day in the dark with the same offering of ash. And the Simhastha comes around again and again, and people keep coming. Time moves, as it always does, and the people of Ujjain meet it with small, steady devotion.

One thing to take with you. Think of one practice or prayer that someone in your family kept for many years. This week, do it once yourself, in their memory, and notice that you are part of a long line.

Thank you for sitting with us through this series. Wherever you are listening from, we hope Ujjain now feels a little closer. May your own small practices stay steady, one day at a time.

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• Listen: Simhastha, the great gathering on the Shipra
• Previous: Around Mahakal, the Shipra, Harsiddhi, Kaal Bhairav and Sandipani
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