Explanation:

Kumbh Mela or Kumbha Mela is a major pilgrimage and festival in Hinduism. It is celebrated in a cycle of approximately 12 years at four river-bank pilgrimage sites: the Prayag (Ganges-Yamuna-mythical Saraswati rivers confluence), Haridwar (Ganges), Nashik (Godavari), and Ujjain (Shipra). The festival is marked by a ritual dip in the waters, but it is also a celebration of community commerce with numerous fairs, education, religious discourses by saints, mass feedings of monks or the poor, and entertainment spectacle. The faithfuls believe that bathing in these rivers is a means to prayascitta (atonement, penance) for past mistakes, and that it cleanses them of their sins. The weeks over which the festival is observed cycles at each site approximately once every 12 years based on the Hindu luni-solar calendar and the relative astrological positions of Jupiter, sun and moon.