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Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad
December 12 - 21, 2002
According to Indian mythology, the gods and the demons joined effort
to get the kumbh (pot) of amrit, (nectar that makes one
immortal), that was in the great ocean. They churned the ocean with
Mainak, the mountain, using Vasuki, the king of snakes,
as a rope.
Fourteen precious things came out as the great ocean was churned, the
last of which was the amrit kumbh. The gods and the demons had
a fight over its posession. The gods finally won and became immortal.
However, during the tussle four drops of amrit dropped at
four places on Earth. The sangam, confluence of the rivers
Ganga and Yamuna in Prayag (Allahabad) is one
of them. That makes it one of the holiest places!
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The logo shows the amrit kumbh in the ocean, depicted as a drop of water. The pot, being topologically a disc, symbolizes the open string; while the closed string world sheet at the boundary of the droplet is triangulated by the holy rivers.