More of this Feature • Open Religious Rendezvous • A Global Communion • Foreign Reactions!

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dissolution of the body and an exhortation to just keep on going". But actually it defies any definition and transcends the barriers of culture, religion and geography to create a unique experience.

A True World Festival!
The Maha Kumbh has drawn people from all over the world, and is internationally touted as the greatest show on earth. West met the East as Americans and Europeans, many of them zealous admirers of Hinduism, descended on this pilgrimage, traveling over thousands of miles and spending hundreds of dollars to be part of this historic congregation.

No wonder, the Kumbh can boast of such visitors in the past as Hiuen-Tsang, the medieval Chinese pilgrim and raconteur, and Mark Twain, the father of American prose. Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama too rose to the occasion and arrived at the Mela on January 25, 2001, with an entourage of 80 Buddhist monks to participate in a Hindu prayer ritual, meet Hindu leaders and speak against religious conversions, and promote world peace and inter-faith harmony.

A Religious Blockbuster!
For foreigners, the Kumbh Mela was Indian exotica at its very best - the terra firma of the bizarre, which is at once libertarian and bohemian, physical and metaphysical, pure and uncouth. For travel agents, this 'religious blockbuster', was a golden opportunity to sell spirituality and salvation, the Kumbh being the pricey icing on the cake for package tours.

…But We Missed The Stars!
Tour operators Cox and Kings, who were about to fly in a bunch of Hollywood stars, including Madonna, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone and Richard Gere to the festival were asked to pack their bags and leave the Mela by authorities, following rumors that they were serving non-vegetarian food and liquor in their 5-acre plush tent colony of 74 Swiss cottages close to the Kumbh.