Somanatha Temple (Sanskrit: सोमनाथ, romanized: Somanātha, lit. Soma = moon nātha = lord/master ) is a Hindu temple, located in Prabhas Patan, Veraval, in Gujarat, India. It is one of the most sacred pilgrimage sites, or Tirtha Kshetra for Hindus and is the first among the twelve jyotirlinga shrines of Shiva. The date of construction of the earliest Somnath temple remains uncertain, with estimates varying between the early centuries of the 1st millennium and about the 9th century CE. Various texts, including the Mahabharata and Bhagavata Purana, mention a tirtha (pilgrimage site) at Prabhas Patan on the coastline of Saurashtra, where the later temple would eventually be built, but archaeology has not found traces of an early temple, though there was a settlement there.

The temple was reconstructed several times in the past after repeated destruction by multiple Muslim invaders and rulers, notably starting with an attack by Mahmud Ghazni in January 1026.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, historians and archaeologists of the colonial era actively studied the Somnath temple because its ruins showed a historic Hindu temple that was turning into an Islamic mosque. After India's independence, those ruins were demolished, and the present Somnath temple was reconstructed in the Māru-Gurjara style of Hindu temple architecture. The contemporary Somnath temple's reconstruction was started under the orders of the first Deputy Prime Minister of India, Vallabhbhai Patel. The reconstruction was completed in May 1951.

Location

The Somnath temple is located along the coastline in Veraval, Saurashtra region of Gujarat. It is about southwest of Ahmedabad, south of Junagadh – another major archaeological and pilgrimage site in Gujarat. It is about southeast of the Veraval Junction railway station, about east of Veraval port, about south of Somnath Terminus railway station, about south of the Keshod Airport and about west of the Diu airport.

The Somnath temple is located eastward to the Veraval port, one of the three ancient trading ports in Gujarat from where Indian merchants departed to trade goods. The 11th-century Persian historian Al-Biruni states that Somnath has become so famous because "it was the harbor for seafaring people and a station for those who went to and fro between Sufala in the country of Zanj (east Africa) and China". Combined with its repute as an eminent pilgrimage site, its location was well known to the kingdoms within the Indian subcontinent. Literature and epigraphical evidence suggest that the medieval-era Veraval port was also actively trading with the Middle East and Southeast Asia. This brought wealth and fame to the city as well as to the temple.

The site of Somnath was occupied during the Indus Valley Civilisation, 2000–1200 BCE. It was one of very few sites in the Junagadh district to be so occupied. After abandonment in 1200 BCE, it was reoccupied in 400 BCE and continued into the historical period. Prabhas is also close to the other sites similarly occupied: Junagadh, Dwarka, Padri and Bharuch.

Nomenclature and significance

Somnath means "Lord of the Soma" or "moon". The site is also called Prabhasa ("place of splendor"). Somnath temple has been a jyotirlinga site for the Hindus, and a holy place of pilgrimage (tirtha). It is one of five most revered sites on the seacoast of India, along with the nearby Dwaraka in Gujarat, Puri in Odisha, Rameswaram and Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu.

Scriptural mentions

Many Hindu texts provide a list of the most sacred Shiva pilgrimage sites, along with a guide for visiting the site. The best known were the Mahatmya genre of texts. Of these, Somnatha temple tops the list of jyotirlingas in the Jnanasamhita – chapter 13 of the Shiva Purana, and the oldest known text with a list of jyotirlingas. Other texts include the Varanasi Mahatmya (found in Skanda Purana), the Shatarudra Samhita and the Kothirudra Samhita. All either directly mention the Somnath temple as the number one of twelve sites, or call the top temple as "Somesvara" in Saurashtra – a synonymous term for this site in these texts. The exact date of these texts is unknown, but based on references they make to other texts and ancient poets or scholars, these have been generally dated between the 10th and 12th century, with some dating it much earlier and others a bit later.

The Somnath temple is not mentioned in ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism, but the "Prabhasa Tirtha" is mentioned as a tirtha (pilgrimage site). For example, the Mahabharata (c. 400 CE in its mature form) in Chapters 109, 118 and 119 of the Book Three (Vana Parva), and Sections 10.45 and 10.78 of the Bhagavata Purana state Prabhasa to be a tirtha on the coastline of Saurashtra.

Alf Hiltebeitel – a Sanskrit scholar known for his translations and studies on Indic texts including the Mahabharata, states that the appropriate context for the legends and mythologies in the Mahabharata are the Vedic mythologies which it borrowed, integrated and re-adapted for its times and its audience. The Brahmana layer of the Vedic literature already mention tirtha related to the Saraswati river. However, given the river was nowhere to be seen when the Mahabharata was compiled and finalized, the Saraswati legend was modified. It vanishes into an underground river, then emerges as an underground river at holy sites for sangam (confluence) already popular with the Hindus. The Mahabharata then integrates the Saraswati legend of the Vedic lore with the Prabhasa tirtha, states Hiltebeitel. The critical editions of the Mahabharata, in several chapters and books mentions that this "Prabhasa" is at a coastline near Dvaraka. It is described as a sacred site where Arjuna and Balarama go on tirtha, a site where Lord Krishna chooses to go and spends his final days, then dies.

Catherine Ludvik – a Religious Studies and Sanskrit scholar, concurs with Hiltebeitel. She states that the Mahabharata mythologies borrow from the Vedic texts but modify them from Brahmin-centered "sacrificial rituals" to tirtha rituals that are available to everyone – the intended audience of the great epic. More specifically, she states that the sacrificial sessions along the Saraswati river found in sections such as of Pancavimsa Brahmana were modified to tirtha sites in the context of the Saraswati river in sections of Vana Parva and Shalya Parva. Thus the mythology of Prabhasa in the Mahabharata, which it states to be "by the sea, near Dwaraka". This signifies an expanded context of pilgrimage as a "Vedic ritual equivalent", integrating Prabhasa that must have been already important as a tirtha site when the Vana Parva and Shalya Parva compilation was complete.

The 5th century poem Raghuvamsa of Kalidasa mentions Somanatha-Prabhasa as a tirtha along with Prayaga, Pushkara, Gokarna. Bathing in one of these tirthas is meant to release one from the cycle of births and deaths.

He states that the site shows how the temple had been changed into a Muslim structure with arch, these sections had been reconstructed with "mutilated pieces of the temple's exterior" and "inverted Hindu images". Such modifications in the dilapidated Somnath temple to make it into a "Mohammedan sanctuary", states Burnes, is "proof of Mohammedan devastation" of this site.

A more detailed survey report of Somnath temple ruins was published in 1931 by Henry Cousens. Cousens states that the Somnath temple is dear to the Hindu consciousness, its history and lost splendor remembered by them, and no other temple in Western India is "so famous in the annals of Hinduism as the temple of Somanatha at Somanatha-Pattan". The Hindu pilgrims walk to the ruins here and visit it along with their pilgrimage to Dwarka, Gujarat, though it has been reduced to a 19th-century site of gloom, full of "ruins and graves". His survey report states:

;Present temple

The present temple is a Māru-Gurjara architecture (also called Chaulukya or Solanki style) temple. It has a "Kailash Mahameru Prasad" form, and reflects the skill of the Sompura Salats, one of Gujarat's master masons.

The architect of the new Somnath temple was Prabhashankarbhai Oghadbhai Sompura, who worked on recovering and integrating the old recoverable parts with the new design in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The new Somnath temple is intricately carved, two level temple with pillared mandapa and 212 relief panels.

thumb|upright=1.6|A wide-angle view – a bit distorted – from the southeast side of the present Somnath temple. Nataraja can be seen on the sukhanasi, along with the two-storey design.

The temple's śikhara, or main spire, is in height above the sanctum, and it has an 8.2-metre-tall flag pole at the top.

Artwork

The rebuilt temple as found in the ruined form in the 19th century and the current temple used recovered parts of previous temple with significant artwork. The new temple has added and integrated the new panels with a few old ones, the color of the stone distinguishing the two. The panels and pillars with historic artwork were and are found in the south and southwest side of the Somnath temple.

In general, the reliefs and sculpture is mutilated, to the point that it is difficult for most to "identify the few images that remain" on panels, states Cousens. An original Nataraja (Tandava Shiva), albeit with chopped arms and defaced, can be seen on the south side. A mutilated Nandi is to the right. To the left of this are traces of Shiva-Parvati, with the goddess seated in his lap. Towards the north-east corner, portions of panels in a band similar to Ramayana scenes in historic Hindu temples can be traced. Sections can be seen with "beautiful vertical mouldings, on either side of the main front doorway", states Cousens, and this suggests that the destroyed temple was "exceedingly richly carved". The temple likely had a galaxy of Vedic and Puranic deities, as one of the partially surviving relief shows Surya's iconography – two lotuses in his hand.

The older temple featured an open plan, with great windows that allow light into the mandapa and circumambulation passage. The intricate and detailed artwork inside and on the pillars of Somnath temple were quite similar to those found in the Luna Vasahi temple at Mount Abu.

Tirtha and festivals

The Somnath-Prabhasa tirtha has been one of the revered tirtha (pilgrimage) site for the Hindus. It is the famed Prabhasa site found in Brahmi script inscriptions in Maharashtra sites. It is mentioned in the poems of Kalidasa.

A few Somnath-Patan sites around the Somnath temple was excavated in the 1970s, led by M. K. Dhavalikar and Z. D. Ansari. They dug deeper at several locations, reported evidence of five periods of human settlement. In 1992, M. K. Dhavalikar and Gregory Possehl – an archaeologist known for his Indus Valley studies, reported their analysis of archaeological discoveries from Prabhas-Patan. According to them, the Somnath site shows evidence of ancient human settlement, from pre-2nd millennium BCE period. They date one period to "pre-Harappan phase". However, these discoveries are all ceramics, wares and jewelry (amulet), and they found no ancient "temple parts". According to Charles Herman's critical review, the evidence available so far does not allow any direct inferences about the society and culture in pre-1st millennium BCE era, but there is persuasive evidence that Prabhas-Patan was an early Harappan site with sedentary farming and cattle keeping and it is in the same league of significance as the Dholavira (Kutch) and Rojdi (Sorath-Harappan) archaeological sites. Further, the Prabhas-Patan mounds that have been excavated show evidence of continued post-Harappan settlement (c. 2000– 1800 BCE) along with several other Saurashtra sites. According to Herman, the archaeological excavations in Prabhas-Patan and Saurashtra region have been too few to make systematic conclusions.

Legacy

Iran

The Somnath temple has inspired different narratives and legacies, for some a symbol of blessed conquest and victories, for some a symbol of fanatical intolerance and persecution. After the 1026 sack of the Somnath temple, states Mehrdad Shokoohy, the "sack of Somnath was not just yet another campaign of a medieval Sultan confined to histories, but a symbol of the revival of Iranian identity boosted by religious zeal, which was to echo in literature and folklore" for nearly one thousand years. The destruction of the Somnath temple – called Sūmanāt in Persian literature, and the killing of Hindus has been portrayed as a celebrated event in numerous versions of history, stories and poems found in Persia written over the centuries. The Persian literature has made mythical ahistorical connections of Somnath to Manat. The destruction of both has been celebrated by the Islamic scholars and elites.

India

On the Indian side, the Somnath temple has been more than another house of worship. For Hindus, it is a question of their heritage, their sense of sacred time and space, states Peter van der Veer.

The Somnath temple was used as a cultural symbol and the starting point for a Rath yatra (chariot journey), states K.N. Pannikkar, by Lal Krishna Advani to begin his Ayodhya campaign in 1990. According to Donald Smith, the reconstruction efforts in the 1950s was not about restoring an ancient architecture, rather the Somnath temple was of religious significance. The rebuilding was a symbol, it was Hindu repudiation of almost a thousand years of Muslim domination, oppression, and reassertion of a safe haven for Hindus in post-partitioned India.

The reconstructed Somnath temple has been the preferred pilgrimage site for Hindus in Gujarat, often combined with a pilgrimage to Dwarka. The site attracts Hindus from all over India, states David Sopher. Another textbook for Pakistan's Middle School repeats a similar narrative, teaching its students that the Somnath temple was not really a Hindu temple but a political center. According to Ashok Behuria and Mohammad Shehzad, the Somnath legacy is narrated in this textbook as, "according to most historians Mahmud invaded India seventeen times to crush the power of the Hindu Rajas and Maharajas who were always busy planning conspiracies against him ... After the fall of Punjab, the Hindus assembled at Somnath — which was more of a political centre than a temple — to plan a big war against Mahmud. He took all the Rajas and Maharajas by surprise when he attacked Somnath and crushed the Hindu headquarter of political intrigue. With the destruction of Somnath he broke the backbone of the Hindus in the region and thus had no need to attack India again".

In Islamic State nationalist literature of the modern era, Sultan Mahmud campaign in the 11th century has been glorified as a historic "jihad against non-Muslims", his motive in destroying Somnath temple is described as "not driven by worldly gain [wealth]", but because he wanted to "end the worship of idols".

Afghanistan

In 1842, during the First Anglo-Afghan War, the Governor-General of India Lord Ellenborough ordered his troops to bring the wooden gates from the tomb of Mahmud of Ghazni in Ghazni, Afghanistan back to India; it was believed Mahmud had taken them from Somnath Temple. However, there was nor there is any evidence that Somnath temple or its site ever had any wooden gates. Nor is there any evidence that Mahmud or later conquerors ever took any gates from Prabhas-Patan region as a part of the plunder. This order has been called the Proclamation of the Gates. The order, states Thapar, is best seen as an example of how "colonial intervention in India" was viewed in the 1840s.

Literature

A fictionalized version of the temple appears in the Epilogue to the 1868 novel, The Moonstone. The plot involves the loss of a great diamond which at the end of the story is returned here to a statue of Chandra, the Hindu god of the moon.

Kesari Veer is a 2025 Indian Hindi-language historical action film directed by Prince Dhiman. The film is co-produced by Rajen Chauhan, Heena Chauhan, Suhraj Chauhan and Ohm Chauhan. Written, co-directed and produced by Kanubhai Chauhan of Chauhan Studios, the film stars Suniel Shetty, Vivek Oberoi, Sooraj Pancholi and Akanksha Sharma. It tells the story of Rajput warrior Hamirji Gohil, who fought against the Tughlaq empire to protect the Somnath Temple from destruction.

<gallery mode="packed" heights="134">

File:Somnath temple in Gujarat converted into a mosque, sketched by Captain Postans and lithograph by Thomas Dibdin, published in 1850.jpg|Somnath converted into mosque, partly correct, partly embellished sketch (1850 CE)

Image:Somnath temple-View2.jpg|Somnath Temple in 1957

Image:Somnath Temple.jpg|Somnath Temple in 2012

File:Somnath temple Prabhas Veraval Gujarat, artwork 1 with captions.jpg|Brahma-Shiva-Vishnu above mukhamandapa

Image:Somnathtempledawn.JPG|Somnath Temple at dawn

</gallery>

See also

  • Bhalka
  • Conversion of non-Islamic places of worship into mosques
  • Kashi Vishwanath Temple
  • Dwarka

Notes

References

Bibliography

  • .

Further reading

  • Somnath: The Shrine Eternal - by K M.Munshi
  • Kavita Singh (2010), "The Temple's Eternal Return: Swaminarayan Akshardham Complex in Delhi", pp.&nbsp;73–75,Artibus Asiae, Vol 70, no. 1, academia.edu

<!--========================()============================

|PLEASE BE CAUTIOUS IN ADDING MORE LINKS TO THIS ARTICLE. WIKIPEDIA|

|IS NOT A COLLECTION OF LINKS NOR SHOULD IT BE USED FOR ADVERTISING.|

||

|Excessive or inappropriate links WILL BE DELETED.|

|See Wikipedia:External links & Wikipedia:Spam for details.|

||

|If there are already plentiful links, please propose additions or|

|replacements on this article's discussion page, or submit your link|

|to the relevant category at the Open Directory Project (dmoz.org)|

|and link back to that category using the template.|

===

==()

===

=

=-->

  • Somnath Temple Official Website