Prelims : Current events of national and international importance
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Thousands of devotees have arrived in Assam for the Kamakhya Temple’s annual Ambubachi Mela.
It is one of the largest religious gatherings in Northeast India.
The festival is held during the monsoon, generally in June, at the Kamakhya Temple in Nilachal hills in Guwahati, Assam.
It is a shrine to the Goddess Kamakhya and one of the most important centres of Tantrik Shaktism.
The period of Ambubachi is believed to be the period of the goddess’s annual menstruation, and the shrine is closed for this.
At the end of the period, the shrine’s doors are opened ceremonially, and devotees flock for darshan of the deity.
The festival is associated with fertility, with the onset of monsoon, and the common historical association across cultures of the Earth as a fertile woman.
The name ‘Ambubachi’ itself translates to water flowing.
Ambubachi Mela is not an image of the Goddess but rather a process, a formal process of menstruation.
It is believed that during monsoon rain the creative and nurturing power of the menses of mother Earth becomes accessible to devotees at this site during Ambubachi.
During this period, there is an entire cessation of all ploughing, sowing and other agricultural activities.
Fragments of cloth stained with the blood-mark of the Goddess are distributed to the devotees and pilgrims preserve these in their houses as protective amulets.
