Abstract

Kumbh Mela is the largest pilgrim gathering in India, with millions of people attending from different countries. This paper conducted a bibliometric analysis of Kumbh Mela literature for the time span of 2000 to 2024. It analyzed data from 163 publications retrieved from the Scopus and Web of Science databases using Biblioshiny and VOSviewer. This study was conducted to identify research trends, patterns of international collaboration, and to evaluate the emerging themes in research. The analysis reveals a notable growth in research publications between 2020 and 2024, with the majority of contributions coming from India, the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Lecture Notes in Engineering recorded the highest number of publications, totaling six, while The Lancet received the most citations, with a count of 179. The Indian Institute of Science and the University of Sydney emerged as the leading institutions, each producing 16 publications. India not only contributed the largest share of publications but also showed the highest level of international collaboration. Among the keywords, “Kumbh Mela” was the most frequently cited by researchers. Keyword clustering identified crowd management and technology in mass gatherings as the emerging topics in the literature. The paper also developed a theme-wise content analysis of 30 curated articles using the TCCM framework.