The Somnath temple on the western coast of Gujarat, India, situated in Prabhas Patan near Veraval in Saurashtra, is believed to be the first of Shiva’s twelve jyotirlinga shrines. It is an important tourist and pilgrimage spot in Gujarat. After repeated destruction by many invaders and rulers, the present temple was rebuilt several times in the past, in the Chaulukya style of Hindu temple architecture, and completed in May 1951. Under the orders of the Home Minister of India, Vallabhbhai Patel, reconstruction began and was completed after his death. Narendra Modi, currently the Prime Minister of India, is the President of the Somnath Mandir Trust.
Due to the different legends related to it, the temple is considered sacred. Somnath Temple, an epithet of Lord Shiva, means ‘Lord of the Soma.’
“The temple of Somnath is known as “the Eternal Shrine” after a book by K. Via this title and his account of the demolition and rebuilding of the temple several times in history, M. Munshi.
According to tradition, one of the 12 jyotirlingas in India, where Shiva is thought to have emerged as a fiery light column, is the Shivalinga in Somnath. The jyotirlingas are taken as the supreme, undivided truth that part appears to Shiva.
The name of a separate manifestation of Shiva is taken from each of the 12 Jyotirlinga locations. The primary image at all these sites is a lingam reflecting the beginning-less and endless stambha (pillar), symbolizing Shiva’s eternal existence.
Since ancient times, the site of Somnath has been a pilgrimage site since it is a Triveni Sangam (the confluence of three rivers: Kapila, Hiran, and the mythical Saraswati). It is believed that Soma, the god of the moon, lost his lustre due to a curse, and he bathed at this site in the Sarasvati River to recover it. The effect is the moon’s waxing and waning, no doubt an allusion to the tides’ waxing and waning at this spot on the seashore. This tradition stems from the name of the town of Prabhas, meaning lustre, as well as from the alternative names Someshvar and Somnath (“the lord of the moon” or “the moon god”).
AlauddinKhalji’s army, led by Ulugh Khan, defeated the Vaghela King Karna during its invasion of Gujarat in 1299 and sacked the temple of Somnath. In the later documents, the legends KanhadadePrabandha (15th century) and Kyat (17th century) state that after an assault on the Delhi army near Jalore, the Jalore ruler Kanhadadeva later recovered the Somnath idol and released the Hindu prisoners. Other accounts, however, state that the idol was taken to Delhi, where it was thrown under the feet of Muslims to be trampled.
These sources include contemporary and near-contemporary texts, including Khazainul-Futuh from Amir Khusrau, Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi from Ziauddin Barani, and Vividha-Tirtha-Kalpa from Jinaprabha Suri. Likely, the story of the rescue of the Somnath idol by Kanhadadeva is a fabrication by the later authors. Alternatively, the Khalji army may have brought several idols to Delhi, and one of them was recovered by Kanhadadeva’s army.
Mahipala I, the Chudasama king of Saurashtra, reconstructed the temple in 1308 and his son Khengara constructed the lingam sometime between 1331 and 1351.
As late as the 14th century, Amir Khusrow noted that Gujarati Muslim pilgrims stopped at that temple to pay their respects before leaving for the Hajj pilgrimage. In 1395, Zafar Khan, the last governor of Gujarat under the Delhi Sultanate and later the founder of the Gujarat Sultanate, demolished the temple for the third time. In 1451, Mahmud Begada, the Sultan of Gujarat, desecrated it.
The temple, one of several, was ordered demolished by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in 1665. In 1702, he ordered that if worship was resurrected there by Hindus, it should be completely demolished.
Before independence, Veraval was a member of the state of Junagadh, whose ruler joined Pakistan in 1947. The state was made part of India after India declined to recognize its decision, and Deputy Prime Minister Patel came to Junagadh on 12 November 1947 to direct the stabilization of the state by the Indian Army and ordered the reconstruction of the Somnath temple at the same time.
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Gandhi blessed the move when Patel, K. M. Munshi, and other Congress leaders went to Mahatma Gandhi with their plan to rebuild the Somnath temple but proposed that the funds for the building should be raised from the public and that the state should not finance the temple.
He claimed that he was proud to be involved with the temple renovation project. However, both Gandhi and Sardar Patel soon died, and under Munshi, who was the Minister for Food and Civil Supplies, the Government of India led by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the task of reconstruction of the temple continued.
In October 1950, the ruins were pulled down and the mosque at that site was moved a few kilometres away using construction vehicles. The installation ceremony for the temple was conducted in May 1951 by Rajendra Prasad, the first President of the Republic of India, invited by K M Munshi.
The present temple is constructed in the temple architecture style of Chaulukya or “Kailash Mahameru Prasad” style and represents the skill of one of the master masons of Gujarat, the Sompura Salats. The śikhara temple, or main spire, is 15 meters tall and has an 8.2-meter-tall flag pole at the top.
The temple is built in such a position that there is no land in a straight line between the shore of Somnath until Antarctica, on the astambha erected on the sea-protection wall, such an inscription in Sanskrit is found. The astambha states that at that particular longitude it stands at a point on the Indian landmass which is the first point on land in the north to the South Pole.
