Ambubachi Mela 2023: Devotees Seek Goddess Kamakhyas Blessing As Temple Doors Reopen After 3 Days

Thousands of devotees thronged to Guwahati’s Kamakhya Devi temple in Assam on Monday as the doors of the temple reopened after being closed for three days during the annual Ambubachi Mela.

As the doors of the temple reopen after three days, Ambubachi Mela’s Nivritti is performed today.

The annual four-day Ambubachi Mela, one of the biggest Hindu religious events, commenced on Friday and the temple doors were closed on Thursday midnight.

Devotees reached the holy site atop Nilachal hill from places far and wide to attend the festivities. The air was filled with zeal and devotion as the pulsating beats of the dhols (drums) and chants resounded.

The Ambubachi Mela is an annual Hindu fair held in Kamakhya Temple to celebrate the yearly menstruation course of Goddess Kamakhya.

The faithfuls said they queued up from 2 am to enter Kamakya temple, considered most sacred and oldest of the 51 Shakti Peeths of the country, so that they could offer their prayers and obeisance to Maa Kamakhya at the culmination of Ambubachi Mela.

The temple this year witnessed an unprecedented rush of pilgrims from all over the country and abroad converging at Kamakhya temple on banks of the mighty Brahmaputra for Ambubachi Mela. The mela, also known as Amoti or Tantric fertility festival during the monsoon season falling in the Assamese month of Ahaar, is the celebration of the yearly menstruation course of goddess Kamakhya.

Believing the temple’s presiding goddess Devi Kamakhya or Mother Shakti or Mother Earth goes through her annual cycle of menstruation during this time the doors of the temple are closed to visitors for four days. According to Hindu tradition Ambubachi symbolises ancient agricultural concept that Mother Earth is a fertile woman whose womb germinates seeds.

The temple has no idol of the presiding deity but Goddess Kamakhya is instead worshipped in the form of a yoni-like (private part/womb) stone over which a natural spring flows in the sanctum sanctorum of the temple. According to the Kalika Purana, Kamakhya Temple denotes the spot where Lord Shiva’s wife Sati’s yoni fell after Shiva danced with her corpse, while a later work Yogini Tantra ignores this and associates Kamakhya with the goddess Kali and emphasises the creative symbolism of the yoni.