What is the dhwajarohan that opens the Kumbh?

For this Kumbh the day of the flag is the same day Jupiter enters Leo, the day the Simhastha is named for, and why it is called Simhastha says how that day is fixed. The Kumbh period that opens with the flag runs for more than a year, and the three main bathing days fall inside it, later in the period, and the shahi snan has those. The date of the hoisting for this Kumbh, with what the authority has said about it, is on the main Kumbh page.

A ध्वजस्तंभ dhwaja stambh is a flagpole, the tall pole that stands in front of a temple, and the flag that flies on it is the धर्मध्वज dharma dhwaj, the saffron flag. A puja, a यज्ञ yajna, an offering made into a fire, a festival or a Kumbh begins with a flag being raised on such a pole.

At Nashik the pole is at the Ganga Godavari temple, the temple beside Ramkund whose door stays shut for eleven years and opens on Kartik Purnima once in twelve, and the temples of Nashik has that temple. At Trimbakeshwar the poles are at Kushavarta and at the sadhus’ camp.

For this Kumbh the authority is putting up new flagpoles at Ramkund in Nashik and at Trimbakeshwar. The one at Ramkund came from the priests. The priest association at Ramkund wrote to the authority and asked for two permanent metal flagpoles, made with the religious side of the thing in mind, a main pole fifty-one feet high and one at the Ganga Godavari temple thirty-one feet high. On the pole they asked for a मकर makar, the crocodile that is the Ganga’s mount, carrying the water-pot, and the signs of Hanuman, Garud, Ganpati, the lion, Guru, the moon and the sun, because those are the deities of the pole. They asked too for a small metal image of Ganga Godavari, a foot and a quarter high, that could be carried out for festivals and puja.

What the authority approved is the pole at the Ganga Godavari temple, thirty-one feet high, in bronze, on a concrete base with a steel pipe through it, with the pattern work in thinner metal around the outside. The design is worked from the churning of the ocean, and the fourteen things that came out of the sea are worked on it: the poison, the wish-giving cow, the seven-headed horse, Indra’s elephant, the Kaustubh jewel that Vishnu wears, the parijat, the tree of heaven, the apsaras, the dancers of heaven, Lakshmi, the wine, the moon, Dhanvantari the physician of the gods, the bow, the conch, and the amrit itself. Samudra manthan tells that story in full.

The main flag at Ramkund is one thing. The akhadas have their own. In 2015 there were two hoistings at Nashik: the main ceremony at Ramkund, on 14 July, and about a month later the hoisting of the akhadas’ flags at their camp at Sadhugram in Tapovan, where most of the sadhus who arrive at Nashik make their camp. Each akhada raises its own flag over its own ground. The Vaishnav akhadas’ flags carry the image of Hanuman, and one of them, the Digambar akhada’s, is in five colours, black, yellow, white, green and red.

What goes up comes down, and the lowering of the flag is the ध्वजावतरण dhwajavataran. It is the end of the Kumbh period the way the hoisting is the beginning. In 2015 the flag day at Ramkund was 14 July, and the day of the lowering was 11 August of the following year, and with it the Simhastha of 2015 was over. The closing date for this Kumbh is on the main Kumbh page with the rest.

The place is the Ganga Godavari temple, on the bank beside the pool, and the new pole is to stand there, in front of the temple. At Trimbakeshwar the place is Kushavarta, the square kund in the middle of the town. The sadhus and mahants come, and so do a great many others, and the authority has said it expects them in large numbers.