Ambubashi Mela

The annual event of Ambubachi Mela is the most revered fair which holds great importance among the people of Assam. The fair is celebrated with great grandeur in the state capital, Guwahati, which keeps the Kamakhya Temple as its venue.

The Ambubachi Mela is held in the monsoon season, which is also considered as the Asamese period, Ahaar, that takes place almost around the mid of June, during the time when the water level of the river Brahmaputra is increased.

The fair is held to celebrate the annual menstruation course of the Goddess Kamakhya, during this time stretch. This fair of Ambubachi is truly a ritual of the tantrik cult. During this occasion, the doors of the Kamakhya Temple close for three days as it is believed that the Mother Earth becomes unclean for these three days and the production or the farming work is not being undertaken at this time.

Also the daily worships, prayers and other religious performances are ceased during the Ambubachi Mela of Guwahati in Assam. On the fourth day, the doors of the Kamakhya Temple are reopened, after bathing Goddess Kamakhya and the other rituals are done openly. In the temple, there isn’t any idol of the presiding deity but she is offered prayers in the form of a yoni-like stone structure.

Ambubachi Mela is also known as Ameti or Tantric fertility festival. Thousands of devotees visit the temple to receive the unique ‘prasad’, in the form of small bits of cloth, which is supposedly humid with the menstrual fluid of Goddess Kamakhya and is considered highly auspicious and miraculous.