{"id":15408,"date":"2017-02-25T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-25T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2017\/02\/25\/the-sacred-lake-of-ganga-talao\/"},"modified":"2017-02-25T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-02-25T12:00:00","slug":"the-sacred-lake-of-ganga-talao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2017\/02\/25\/the-sacred-lake-of-ganga-talao\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sacred Lake of Ganga Talao"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2016\/05\/03\/africa\/maha-shivaratri-mauritius\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n<p>MAURITIUS, May 3, 2016 (CNN): Every year on the tiny island of Mauritius a great pilgrimage occurs. Thousands of Hindus make the rugged journey to a volcanic crater that houses the Ganga Talao, a lake raised up high above the Indian Ocean, for a touch of divinity. There are few similarities between the Ganges and Ganga Talao at first glance. One is a vast river coursing through South Asia, the other a placid lake. For Hindus however, the link that binds the two bodies of water is strong; spiritual and essential.<\/p>\n<p>In 1887 a priest claimed to see the waters of Ganga Talao flowing from the Goddess Ganga in a dream &#8212; the same Goddess who personifies the holy waters of the Ganges. Word of this revelation spread, transforming Ganga Talao. A simple lake no more, it was now the embodiment of a Hindu god, connected directly to the mighty Ganges situated nearly 4,000 miles away.<\/p>\n<p>Ever since worshipers have journeyed to the sacred lake, a cultural touchstone for the island&#8217;s Indian emigrants and a link to their South Asian past. Today it sits at the heart of the island&#8217;s most important Hindu festival, Maha Shivaratri.<\/p>\n<p>More at &#8220;source&#8221; above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source MAURITIUS, May 3, 2016 (CNN): Every year on the tiny island of Mauritius a great pilgrimage occurs. Thousands of,&#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-15408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15408","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=15408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}