Fairs, Festivals and the Kumbh Mela of Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh holds more large fairs than any other state in India, and the reason is geography: the Ganga, the Yamuna and their tributaries run through it, and almost every bathing ghat, temple town and dargah on their banks carries a mela. UPPSC, UPSSSC, UP Police and SSC papers ask this chapter as fair, place, district and occasion, with the Kumbh Mela as its single biggest head. The notes below take the Kumbh first and then work through the Braj, Varanasi, Ayodhya and western district fairs.

The Kumbh Mela and its four sites

The Kumbh Mela is held in rotation at four places, each on a river: Prayagraj at the confluence of the Ganga and the Yamuna, Haridwar on the Ganga, Ujjain on the Shipra and Nashik and Trimbakeshwar on the Godavari. The legend behind it is the samudra manthan, in which drops of amrit are said to have fallen at these four spots. The turn of each site is fixed by the position of Jupiter and the Sun: Prayagraj takes its Kumbh when Jupiter is in Taurus and the Sun enters Capricorn, Haridwar when Jupiter is in Aquarius and the Sun in Aries, Ujjain when Jupiter is in Leo and the Sun in Aries, and Nashik when both Jupiter and the Sun are in Leo. A full Kumbh comes to a site once in about twelve years; Prayagraj and Haridwar also hold an Ardh Kumbh at the halfway mark of about six years. In 2017 the Kumbh Mela was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, and the Maha Kumbh of 2025 was the last one held at Prayagraj. Its processions and bathing days belong to the akharas, traditionally counted as thirteen, whose entry procession is the peshwai and whose principal bath is the shahi or amrit snan.

Prayagraj through the year

Even in an ordinary year Prayagraj holds the Magh Mela, which runs from Paush Purnima to Mahashivratri on the sands at the Sangam. Pilgrims who stay through the month in tents and keep a fixed discipline are called kalpvasis, and the main bathing days are Paush Purnima, Makar Sankranti, Mauni Amavasya, Basant Panchami, Maghi Purnima and Mahashivratri. The city is the one place where the Kumbh, the Ardh Kumbh and an annual mela all follow the same calendar.

The fairs of Braj

The Mathura and Vrindavan belt keeps the festivals of Krishna. Janmashtami fills Mathura and the Krishna Janmabhoomi; Lathmar Holi is played at Barsana and Nandgaon, where the women of Barsana drive back the men of Nandgaon with sticks; the phoolon wali Holi of flowers is played at the Banke Bihari temple in Vrindavan; and Govardhan Puja or Annakut follows Diwali at Govardhan. The Braj Holi begins around Basant Panchami and runs for about forty days, which is why the belt is said to keep the longest Holi in India.

Varanasi and the eastern fairs

At Varanasi Dev Deepawali is kept on Kartik Purnima, when lamps are floated and lit along the ghats, and the Ganga Mahotsav of music and crafts closes on the same day. The Ramlila of Ramnagar, staged across the town for about a month under the patronage of the Kashi Naresh, is the best known Ramlila in the country, and the Nakkatayya of Chetganj is its liveliest night. Buddha Purnima is the chief fair at Sarnath, where the Buddha preached his first sermon, and at Kushinagar, the place of his mahaparinirvana. Mirzapur keeps the Navratri fairs of Vindhyavasini Devi, and Sitapur the Naimisharanya pilgrimage.

Ayodhya and the western districts

Ayodhya holds the Ram Navami Mela in Chaitra, the Sawan Jhula Mela in the rains, the Kartik Purnima Parikrama and the Deepotsav of lamps on the eve of Diwali. In the west, the Nauchandi Mela of Meerut, traced by tradition to 1672, begins on the Sunday after Holi and is held jointly at the Nauchandi Devi temple and the dargah of Bale Miyan, which is why it is quoted as an example of composite culture. The Dewa Sharif fair at the dargah of Haji Waris Ali Shah in Barabanki is held in Kartik with a mushaira; the Bateshwar fair in Agra district is a Kartik Purnima cattle fair at a row of Shiva temples on the Yamuna; Garhmukteshwar in Hapur district draws a Kartik Purnima bathing fair on the Ganga; Shakumbhari Devi in Saharanpur fills at Navratri; and the Kajli Mela of Mahoba, held just after Raksha Bandhan, keeps alive the memory of the Bundela heroes Alha and Udal. The state also runs the Taj Mahotsav at Shilpgram in Agra every February and the Lucknow Mahotsav in the winter.

Festivals kept across the state

Besides the melas, Uttar Pradesh keeps Ganga Dussehra on the Dashami of Jyeshtha as the day the Ganga is said to have descended, Kajari Teej and Hariyali Teej in the rains, Bada Mangal on the Tuesdays of Jyeshtha in Lucknow with free bhandaras, and the Muharram processions of Lucknow with their tazias and the Imambaras. Mahashivratri, which falls in the month of Phalguna, is the closing bath of the Magh Mela at Prayagraj and the largest night of the year at the Kashi Vishwanath temple. Together these fairs make the state the main centre of what the syllabus calls the composite culture of north India.