The biggest gathering in human history is underway

The Hindu festival of Maha Kumbh Mela, a rare religious event described as the world's largest gathering of humanity, officially kicked off yesterday in the northern Indian city of Prayagraj.

Maha Kumbh Mela is a 45-day festival, held once every 12 years dating back to at least medieval times. It involves millions of Hindu pilgrims taking a holy bath and participating in other rituals at Sangam, aka the meeting of India's three most important rivers (the Ganges, the Yamuna, and the Saraswati).

• Bathing takes place every day during Maha Kumbh Mela. But on certain scheduled dates, naked, ash-smeared Hindu monks charge toward the holy rivers at dawn.

Maha Kumbh Mela’s scale is massive

A record-high 400 million pilgrims are expected to attend this year’s festival, which typically attracts crowds so large it can be seen from space. (For context, that figure is ~200x the 2 million Muslim pilgrims who participated in the annual Hajj pilgrimage last year.)

Local Prayagraj officials have set up a temporary 10,000-acre city to house visiting pilgrims, which includes a sprawling pop-up economy of vendors alongside roughly 150,000 tents, 145,000 toilets, 3,000 kitchens, and 100 parking lots.

📅🎉 It’s a banner year for religious celebration. The Vatican and Pope Francis are currently celebrating the 2025 Jubilee, a Catholic Church holy year held once every quarter-century. It’s expected to attract ~30 million religious visitors to Italy.