The full pot with its motif of mango leaves and a coconut, appears in all rituals and sacraments. It is a prayer for immortality as well as for an enriched, fulfilled life, which is a complete experience.

Similar to the mythologies of many other countries, India's ancient literature also contains myths about sages and wise men who spent years in harsh penance and solitary meditation to master the secrets of immortality. Many Himalayan herbs were said to possess the magical quality of reviving a dead person. Epics like the Ramayana or the Mahabharata contain stories about the use of Sanjeevani, a herb of great life-reviving qualities.

While physical immortality and everlasting youth remained only a mythical dream, Indian thinkers contemplated a great deal about life and how to make it a complete experience. They sought, through wisdom, experience and the concentration of all mental and spiritual energy, to add a certain richness to life, a wholeness which would take human beings closet to the dream of immortality. This concept of fullness, of total self contentment, has been symbolised in Indian thought and art by the graphic figure of the Poorna Kumbh or the full pot.

According to mythology, the gods, wanting to find the nectar of everlasting life, churned the cosmic ocean and obtained from its rising waves the kumbh or pot of nectar. The pot contained within its rotund shape the fullness and the richness of life. Bitter wars followed for its possession but none could gain the nectar completely.

The pot, however, became a symbol, and is even today used widely in religious rituals. When entering a new home, an Indian family ceremonially carries the kumbh decorated with mango leaves and a coconut. In weddings and death ceremonies, the full pot features constantly as a reminder of the human desire to achieve completeness in life. A pot filled with the water of the sacred river Ganga is often worshipped in household shrines. Such a pot of water is associated with fluidity and life-giving energy. Often the pot is decorated with a swastika, the symbol of the sun's energy.

Quite naturally, the kumbh has become the theme of several magnificent festivals held in India around the time Jupiter transits through Aquarius once in every 12 years. Millions of enthusiastic bathers gather in Hardwar and Allahabad near the sacred Ganga and in Nasik and Ujjain on the banks of the Godavari and the Kshipra, for their ritual drenching, making these festivals the greatest assembles of bathers in the world.