Ambubachi Mela is the most important festival at Kamakhya Temple, Guwahati, Assam. The Mela starts every year in Monsoon season and lasts for 4 days. During these four days, over 10 Lakhs pilgrims visit the temple to have a sight of holy goddess.
Kamakhya Temple at Guwahati. This year Ambubachi Mela would start on June 22
During these four days, the temple remains shut down and no devotional activities take place. It is believed that mother earth becomes unclean for three days like the traditional women’s menstrual seclusion.
After three days devi Kamakhya is bathed and other rituals are performed to ensure that the devi retrieves her purity. Then the doors of the temple are reopened and prasad is distributed.
Large number of devotees make a mad rush when the temple reopens to receive the unique ‘prasad’ which is small bits of cloth, which is supposedly moist with the menstrual fluid of Goddess Kamakhya. It is considered highly auspicious and powerful.
It is also believed that during the monsoon rains the creative and nurturing power of the ‘menses’ of Mother Earth becomes accessible to devotees at this site during the mela.
Every year lakhs of pilgrims, starting from Sadhus to householders, from all over India, come to Guwahati to observe this festival.
They include Sanyasins, black clad Aghoras, the Khade-babas, the Baul or singing minstrels of West Bengal, intellectual and folk Tantriks, Sadhus and Sadhvis with long matted hair etc. Even foreigners from abroad come to seek blessings of mother Kamakhya.
If you are lucky, you might spot some Tantriks and Rishis, who rarely make public appearance. The rest of the year, they remain in seclusion. Some Babas are seen displaying their psychic powers like putting their heads in a pit and stand upright on it, standing on one leg for hours at a stretch. Due to this, the mela is also known as Ameti or Tantric fertility festival.
Kamakhya Temple is located at Guwahati, the capital city of the eastern state of Assam. It is located on the top of Nilachal hill on the banks of Bramhaputra river and has been adjudged as one of the seven wonders of India.
Spiritually, Kamakhya Temple is one of the 51 Shakti peethas of Goddess. The present building of temple was built in 1565 after several phases of construction and collapse. The ancient remains of temple date back to several years BC (Before Christ).
The main attraction of Temple is the garbhagriha or sanctoram. It is a small, dark and reached by narrow steep stone steps. Inside the cave there is a sheet of stone that slopes downwards from both sides meeting in a yoni-like depression some 10 inches deep. This hallow is constantly filled with water from an underground perennial spring. It is the vulva-shaped depression that is worshiped as the goddess Kamakhya herself and considered as most important pitha (abode) of the Devi.