{"id":14808,"date":"2016-03-18T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-18T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2016\/03\/18\/15-million-hindus-visited-pashupatinath-for-post-maha-shivaratri-fair\/"},"modified":"2016-03-18T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-03-18T12:00:00","slug":"15-million-hindus-visited-pashupatinath-for-post-maha-shivaratri-fair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2016\/03\/18\/15-million-hindus-visited-pashupatinath-for-post-maha-shivaratri-fair\/","title":{"rendered":"1.5 Million Hindus Visited Pashupatinath for Post-Maha Shivaratri Fair"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/kathmandupost.ekantipur.com\/news\/2016-03-18\/15m-people-visited-pashupatinath-during-maha-shivaratri-organisers.html\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n<p>KANTHMANDU, NEPAL, March 18, 2016 (Kathmandu Post): Pashupatinath Temple witnessed nearly 1.5 million footfalls during the two-week long Maha Shivaratri fair, organizers said.<\/p>\n<p>According to the organizers, the fair has been able to do a business of around US$1.8 million so far. The Maha Shivaratri Festival and Industrial Trade Fair 2016 which began at Pashupatinath on March 8, a day after the Maha Shivaratri festival, are coming to a close on Saturday. The annual fair is attended by pilgrims who come to Pashupatinath and features shops, amusement rides and food stalls. &#8220;Around 1.5 million visitors, including 100,000 foreign tourists, have attended our fair so far,&#8221; said Sandeep Mahat, chairman of Audyogik Shanti Nepal Sanstha, the organiser.<\/p>\n<p>There are over 300 stalls in the fair where local traders sell handicrafts, food, clothing, utensils and shoes. The prime attraction of the fair had been a man-made model of Amarnath cave and Vaishnodevi cave, two very holy Hindu shrines in India&#8217;s Jammu and Kashmir.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Every year a fair has been organized in Pashupatinath during Maha Shivaratri since the beginning and this year too it was a success,&#8221; Pawan Agrawal, a member of the organising committee said. &#8220;We could showcase Nepali products during the fair to thousands of people which is the biggest achievement.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Although the fair is closing on Saturday, organizers say the amusement rides and the model of Amarnath and Vaishnodevi caves will be kept intact for one more month. Sushil Pokhrel, a student who visited the fair on Friday, said that the fair had been successful in blending pilgrimage with entertainment and trade. &#8220;After worshipping the Pashupatinath, the fair gives visitors like us the opportunity to shop at decent prices,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source KANTHMANDU, NEPAL, March 18, 2016 (Kathmandu Post): Pashupatinath Temple witnessed nearly 1.5 million footfalls during the two-week long Maha,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}