[1] The festival is marked by a ritual dip in the waters, but it is also a celebration of community commerce with numerous fairs, education, religious discourses by saints, mass feedings of monks or the poor, and entertainment spectacle.

The exact date is based on the Hindu luni-solar calendar and is determined by the entry of planet Jupiter in Taurus zodiac and while the sun and the moon is in Capricorn.

An annual fair, known as Magh Mela, has been held at Prayag Triveni sangam since ancient times (at least early centuries CE).

[10] The writings of the Chinese traveller Xuanzang (Hiuen Tsang) possibly contain a reference to an ancient version of this fair in 644 CE.

Xuanzang mentions that Emperor Shiladitya (identified with Harsha) distributed his wealth among the public once every five years; his treasury was then replenished by his vassals.

[17] A common conception, advocated by the akharas, is that Adi Shankara started the Kumbh Mela at Prayag in the 8th century, to facilitate meeting of holy men from different regions.

Yadgar-i-Bahaduri (1834 CE) similarly mentions that the mela at Allahabad is held every winter in Magha, when the sun enters the Capricorn.

The early British records contain detailed information about the annual Magh Mela at Prayagraj, collected for tax-related and administrative purposes.

Bholanath Chunder (1869) of Asiatic Society also mentions "the especial great mela" at Allahabad as an annual one, held in January.

[9][20] Some of the Company-era Magh Melas include: A letter from Scindia praises a Muslim named Mir Muhammad Amjad for rendering good service to Hindu pilgrims from the Deccan.

[23] Another contemporary source puts the tax imposed by company at ₹ 3 and mentions greater expense is incurred in charity and gifts to Brahmins sitting by the river side.

However, the local British Collector sent Rewa a tax bill of ₹ 5,490 (a hefty amount in those days), on the basis that he had employed Prayagwals, and people in his retinue had their heads tonsured.

In 1874, G. H. M. Ricketts — the Commissioner of Allahabad — wrote that the fair became more sacred every seventh year, and attracted a larger number of pilgrims and merchants.

In this report, G. H. M. Ricketts (then the Magistrate of Allahabad) discusses the need for sanitation controls at the "Coomb fair" (Kumbh Mela) to be held in 1870.

The British attempts to profit from the Mela by imposing a hefty religious tax on the pilgrims brought the Company into direct conflict with the Prayagwals.

[9] The first British reference to the Kumbh Mela in Prayag occurs only in an 1868 report, which mentions the need for increased pilgrimage and sanitation controls at the "Coomb fair" to be held in January 1870.

According to Maclean, the Prayagwals coopted the Kumbh legend and brand from Haridwar to the ancient annual Prayag Magh Mela given the socio-political circumstances in the 19th century.

This orientalist discrimination, the newspapers stated was because of "the helplessness of the mild Hindu who identifies his Christian rulers with the Padres and fears to raise his hand against the White Preacher or his black converts.

[31] Despite the aggressive proselytisation methods used by Christian missionaries at the Prayag Kumbh melas, states Maclean, they had little success in converting any Hindus there.

However, it did help develop vibrant Hindu-owned printing press operations, in reaction to the Christian missionary tactics, that began publishing and widely distributing pro-Kumbh mela, pro-Hindu and anti-colonial literature.

[29] During the 1857 rebellion, Colonel Neill targeted the Kumbh mela site and shelled the region where the Prayagwals lived, destroying it in what Maclean describes as a "notoriously brutal pacification of Allahabad".

In the years after 1857, the Prayagwals and the Kumbh Mela pilgrim crowds carried flags with images alluding to the rebellion and the racial persecution.

The British media reported these pilgrim assemblies and protests at the later Kumbh Mela as "strangely hostile" and with "disbelief", states Maclean.

For example, the colonial era Imperial Gazetteer of India reported that between 2 and 2.5 million pilgrims attended the Kumbh mela in 1796 and 1808, then added these numbers may be exaggerations.

Over time, the communal sentiments intensified and the Kumbh mela became an "ideal place to articulate and promote Hindu interests".

[35] The mela became a source of scandal when a Muslim named Husain was appointed as the Kumbh Mela manager, and Indian newspaper reports stated that Husain had "organized a flotilla of festooned boats for the pleasure of European ladies and gentlemen, and entertained them with dancing girls, liquor and beef" as they watched the pilgrims bathing.

[37] According to Paramahansa Yogananda in his work the Autobiography of a Yogi, it was during the Kumbh Mela in January 1894 at Prayag that his Guru Sri Yukteswar met Mahavatar Babaji for the first time.

[40] Also, in 1941, Daraganj-based Mahanirvani Akhara asked the Government to ban the presence of non-Hindus (Muslim police and Christian missionaries) at the mela.

[21] Many newly prosperous villagers started attending the Mela a status symbol, and documented their claimed lineages in the registers of the Pryagwals.

About 199 projects of 16 government departments are underway under four phases which includes a six-lane bridge over the Ganges and a four-lane railway over-bridge worth ₹275 crore.