Holy pilgrimages to mountains are made by Gods because no number of humans alone can make a mountain. Sacred pilgrimages that are made by the one and only God and humans must be made jointly. Non Abrahamic religions have many pilgrimage sites; the Abrahamic religions have just two: one in Macca and one in Jerusalem. 

Tens of thousands of Hindu naked ascetics and millions of other pilgrims have come to bathe in the water of three sacred rivers in northern India. Such baths are a major part of the Maha Kumbh festival, the largest religious pilgrimage on Planet Earth. Holding tridents, swords, spears and small two-headed drums, ash-smeared Hindu holy men marched and rode chariots at sunrise toward the confluence of two rivers, the Ganges and the Yamuna with the now all dried up ancient Saraswati river.

Hindus believe that bathing at this river confluence will cleanse them of their sins and release them from the cycle of rebirth.The festival is held every 12 years. Over a six-week span, it’s expected to draw 350-400 million people, many will take part in elaborate religious rituals. 

The origins of the Maha Kumbh Mela are deeply entwined with Hindu mythology, particularly the story of the Samudra Manthan, or the churning of the ocean by gods (Devas) and demons (Asuras) to retrieve the nectar of immortality (Amrita). As the celestial pot of nectar emerged, a divine tussle ensued, resulting in drops spilling at four locations on Earth, sanctifying them for eternity. These places became the venues for the Kumbh Mela. Historically, the festival is documented as far back as the 7th century CE

At the same time in the ancient town of Ouidah in southern Benin, in Africa, a place where dozens of gods and spirits come together, people were celebrating the annual Voodoo festival that brings a mix of religions into a clash of cultures, with the ability for ancient traditional beliefs to adapt to modern life. 

Mass pilgrimage is one of the most ancient religious activities of Homo sapiens. Featuring traditional ceremonies, dance events, and rituals in the form of incantations, adulations and offerings, Voodoo dates back to the 1400s and draws heavily from the mythology and cultural displays of Yoruba people of Nigeria’s southwest.

Göbekli Tepe, located in southern Turkey near the Syrian border, is the oldest [10,000 BCE] human selected religious pilgrimage site discovered anywhere in the world. It attracted worshippers from up to 150 km away. Many of its stone pillars are decorated with carved animal reliefs such as lions, bulls, boars, foxes, gazelles, snakes and birds, particularly vultures. There are very few human figures in the art at Göbekli Tepe. 

 The Göbekli Tepe structures predate pottery, metallurgy, and the invention of writing or the wheel, and were built before the Neolithic Revolution, which marks the beginning of agriculture, animal husbandry, and year around settlements around 9,000 BCE. A new layer was discovered and it is now considered to have reached 14,000 years back.

Then, at the beginning of the 8th millennium BCE, Göbekli Tepe lost its religious significance for the region’s inhabitants that it had for the previous thousand plus years. If Prophet Adam or Prophet Noah had lived at that time, it is possible that one of them........

© Eurasia Review