Somnath temple

This article is about the temple. For the town of Somnath, see Veraval.

Somanatha Temple Somnath Mandir
Religion
Affiliation	Hinduism
District	Gir Somnath district
Deity	Shiva
Festivals	Maha Shivaratri
Location
Location	Veraval (Somnath)
State	Gujarat
Country	India
Shown within Gujarat Somnath temple (India)
Geographic coordinates	20°53′16.9″N 70°24′5.0″E
Architecture
Creator	(Many reconstructions)
Completed	1951 (present structure)
Website
www.somnath.org

The Somnath temple, also called Somanātha temple or Deo Patan, is located in Prabhas Patan, Veraval in Gujarat, India. One of the most sacred pilgrimage sites for the Hindus, they believe it to be the first among the twelve Jyotirlinga shrines of Shiva. Reconstructed several times in the past after repeated destruction by several Muslim invaders and rulers, it is unclear when the first version of the Somnath temple was built. Estimates for the first Somnath temple vary between the early centuries of the 1st-millennium to about the 9th-century CE. The temple's history is a subject of disputes and controversial.

The Somnath temple was actively studied by colonial era historians and archaeologists in the 19th- and early 20th-century, when its ruins illustrated a historic Hindu temple in the process of being converted 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 Home Minister of India Vallabhbhai Patel and completed in May 1951 after his death. Presently the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi is the chairman of Shree Somnath Mandir trust.

Location

The Somnath temple is located along the coastline in Prabhas Patan near Veraval, Saurashtra region of Gujarat. It is about 400 kilometres (249 mi) southwest of Ahmedabad, 82 kilometres (51 mi) south of Junagadh – another major archaeological and pilgrimage site in Gujarat. It is about 7 kilometres (4 mi) southeast of the Veraval railway junction, about 130 kilometres (81 mi) southeast of the Porbandar airport and about 85 kilometres (53 mi) west of the Diu airport.

The Somanatha temple is located at a site that was an ancient trading port, one of three in Gujarat from where Indian merchants departed to trade goods. The 11th-century Persian historian Al-Biruni, in his memoirs, 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 suggests that the medieval era Veraval-Patan area port was also actively trading with the Middle East and Southeast Asia. This brought wealth and fame to the Veraval area as well as this temple.

Nomenclature and significance

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

Jyotirlinga

Somnath Jyotirlinga temple in 2015, Prabhas Patan

Many Hindu texts provide a list of the most sacred Shiva pilgrimage sites, along with a guide on how to visit and the mythology behind each 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 that is found in these early Indian 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. While the dating of Purana-genre chapters is disputed because these were living texts and were being revised in their new editions in Indian history, its kings and inscriptions can be chronologically placed with greater certainty. One of these, for example, was the 9th-century Nagabhatta II – a Pratihara king, who states that he completed tirtha at Somanatha and other Saurashtra sites. Such literary and royal pilgrimage evidence taken together suggests that the Somnath temple was a celebrated and most revered Jyotirlinga tirtha for the Hindus by about the 10th-century.

Mythology

The Somnath temple is not mentioned in ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. The "Prabhasa-Pattana" site of Somnath is mentioned in ancient texts. For example, the Mahabharata (c. 400 CE) 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.

According to the historian Romila Thapar, Somnath may have been linked to this Prabhasa Pattana through mythology in some later century. She proposes that this was done by inventing a Triveni Sangam where rivers Kapila and Hiran met mythical Sarasvati river. Here, Soma – the Moon god (Chandra deva) – after losing his lustre, bathed in the Sarasvati River and thus regained his prabhasa (brilliance). The town was therefore named Prabhasa, meaning lustre.

Alf Hiltebeitel – a Sanskrit scholar known for his translations and studies on Indic texts including the Mahabharata, in contrast to Thapar, 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 Krishna of the Bhagavad Gita fame 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 Dvaraka". 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 some of revered Shiva pilgrimage sites of his times. It includes Banaras (Varanasi), Mahakala-Ujjain, Tryambaka, Prayaga, Pushkara, Gokarna and Somnatha-Prabhasa. This list of Kalidasa gives a "clear indication of tirthas celebrated in his day", states Diana Eck – an Indologist known for her publications on historic Indian pilgrimage sites.

Inscriptions

Indian inscriptions

Many Indian inscritions mention Prabhasa – the Somnath temple site – as a tirtha (sacred pilgrimage). Quite few of these relate to Pashupata subtradition of Shaivism, which implies that this was a Shiva-related tirtha site. From 8th-century onwards, increasing number of inscriptions directly mention the temple as Somesvara or Somnath. Many of these later inscriptions were taken out and relocated from the ruins, some taken as momentos by Europeans, in early 19th-century. For example, one Sanskrit inscription was taken from Somnath temple ruins by Don John de Castro and was found in Sintra (near Lisbon, Portugal) in his garden. This inscription states that "Pashupata Ganda Tripurantaka" rebuilt Somnath temples in Vikrama Samvat 1343. Some of the Sais inscriptions about Somnath temple disappeared. Royal Asiatic Society made efforts to trace them, but these failed.

Of the different surviving inscriptions, some notable ones are:

• The Nasik inscription of Ushavadata (c. 100–125 CE, 3 lines nearly standard Sanskrit, 2 lines hybrid Sanskrit, Brahmi): it mentions a tirtha in Prabhasa by Nahapana (c. 1st-century CE), along with several other tirtha sites and many other charitable acts of the king towards Brahmins, for religious pilgrims and a donation of caves to Buddhist monks.

Nasik Cave inscription in Brahmi script mentions a king completing a tirtha in Prabhasa (c. 100–125 CE).

• The Karle inscription of Ushavadata (c. 100–125 CE, hybrid Sanskrit, Brahmi): it also mentions Nahapana, repeats his charity and visiting Prabhasa – the site of pure tirtha, then states that Ushavadata is "donating villages to support the ascetics living in these caves at Valuraka during varsha, without any distinction of their sect or origin".
• Saindhava Copper-plate Grants from Ghumli (832 CE, Sanskrit, early Nagari): it is named after the village it was discovered in, but Ghumli was once called Bhutambilika when it was a capital city of a Western Kathiawad kingdom in and before the 10th-century. This is a set of six copper plates. Three of these were issued by Agguka II. The inscription mentions a gift to a Rigvedic Brahmin named Madhava of Somesvara (Somanatha) site. While the grant does not mention a temple, it establishes that the Prabhasa tirtha was already associated with Somnath by the 9th-century.
• The Udaipur Prashasti of Malwa kings (c. late 11th century, Sanskrit, Nagari): it is so named as it was discovered on a stone slab inside Udaipaur's Shiva temple. Its original location is unknown. Like all prashasti-style inscription, it weaves mythology and exaggerates the successes of early Malwa kings, states the epigraphist Buhler, and the historicity of these initial verses is doubtful. However, the verses in the inscription about the decades when it was inscribed are likely to be true when they can be corroborated. The last eleven verses of this inscription mentions the polymath-king Bhoja, as well as the invasion by Turushkas (Muslim) – likely the one led by Mahmud of Ghazni. Verse 21 mentions that Bhoja built many temples for Shiva and Vishnu, and one of the temples it specifically mentions is the Somanatha temple. This is likely true because king Bhoja is the attributed author of Samarangana Sutradhara – one of the best known surviving Sanskrit manuscripts on Hindu temple architecture. Saurashtra would have been a part of his kingdom. However, the inscription does not say the location of the Somanatha temple he built or rebuilt.
• Narendra inscription (1125 CE, Sanskrit, Kannada script) is found on a stone tablet in Mallikarjuna temple, Dharwad, Karnataka. It is from Vikramaditya VI and Kadamba Jayakesin II reign. Verses 6 through 8 of this poetic inscription mentions ships sailing from the Kavadi-dvipa (coastal Goa-Karnataka region) to various destinations, including to Saurashtra with "great pomp" to visit the "lord Somanatha with camphor". This incription suggests that the Somnath temple was an active tirtha destination by the early 12th-century.
• The Stone Inscription of Bhadrakali (1169 CE, Sanskrit, Devanagari): also called the Somnathapattan Prashasti of Bhava Brihaspati, it was found in goddess Bhadrakali temple of Prabhasa-Patana. It is a 54-line Pashupata Shaiva inscription on a large black stone. The last 19 lines of this inscription are damaged, and only the first 35 lines can be read with confidence. Lines 11–14 state that the learned scholar Bhava Brihaspati with the help of king Kumarapala rebuilt the ruined temple of Shiva, resembling "Kailasha". Lines 28–35 inscription are also notable for specifically mentioning ruins, repairs to the town, water tanks, streets lined with "beautiful pillars", and for its list of additional temples built by Kumarapala for Hindu gods and goddesses in Somnath-Patan, all lost to history. These temples include those for Vishnu, Gauri, Kapardin, Bhimesvara and Siddhesvara – all topped with gold pinnacles. Line 24 states that Somnath temple town was provided with a protective fort to its north and south side.
• Bhimadeva inscription (1216 CE) Bhima II rebuilt the Somnath temple, and his efforts are corroborated by other inscriptions.
• Arjunadeva inscription (1264 CE, very ungrammatical Hindu and Islamic languages, Devanagari script): it was found in Harsatha Mata temple at Veraval, likely not the original location, and is named after the king Arjunadeva mentioned in it. This is an odd suspect inscription by many measures – unlike other prashasti inscriptions of this era, this inscription says very little about king Arjunadeva; it is in "very poor Sanskrit" according to the epigraphist and Sanskrit scholar Eugen Hultzsch, the scribe and those who approved it hardly knew Sanskrit; the inscription is a rare, curious mix of Hindu and Muslim customs, but misrepresents them. It is notable inscription as it mentions the sale of land "outside of town of Somanathadeva" and a permission to build a mosque to Nuruddin Firuz – a Persian shipowning and merchant family. It also grants provisions to maintain the mosque; mentions some Islamic festivals called "Baratirabikhatamarati". It says a Para-Tripurantaka as the abbot of a monastery, who had sold land in the "center of Somanathadeva town" to Firuz, and the revenue from this area would be used to maintain the mosque, with any excess sent to "Makka and Madina". In early 1960s, Ziauddin Desai – an epigraphist known for his studies on Arabic and Persian inscriptions in India, reinterpreted an earlier published damaged Arabic inscription and stated that it is a version of the Arjunadeva inscription. This inscription was interpreted by earlier scholars to be from a later century, as the date was difficult to read. According to Desai, it is the Arabic version of the Arjunadeva inscription, one quite different in its details and does not mention Arjunadeva at all. Instead, it has significant sections calling Firuz as "the Sun of Islam and the Muslims, prince of among sea-men, king of kings and merchants" and his father in similarly lofty terms. Lines 6 and 7 of this Arabic version, according to Desai's translation, state "may his affair and prestige be high, in the city of Somnath, may God make it one of the cities of Islam and [banish?] infidelity and idols, and during the time of its ruler Gand Mahattrapadam! and his advisor with correct and beneficial judgment [...]" (Desai's translation with his interpolations).
• Chudasama inscriptions (1308–1351 CE, Sanskrit, Devanagari): found at Girnar. The first inscription states that Chudasama king Mahipaladeva rebuilt Somnath temple, and the second states that his son Khangar IV completed and installed Shiva linga in the Somnath temple.
• Bilhari inscription

Southeast Asian inscriptions

The Vat Luong Kau inscription is a 5th-century Khmer-era inscription discovered in Vat Phu in southern Laos. It is in Sanskrit language, though non-classical, states Richard Salomon – a scholar known for his epigraphy studies in India and of Sanskrit inscriptions. This major inscription mentions a regional King Devanika visiting the inscription stone site after being blessed by the grace of "Siva, Visnu and Brahma". In a prashasti style, the inscription uses Hindu metaphors, the king is compared to Arjuna and other hero legends, and it cites verses of Book 3, Section 81 of the Mahabharata as it consecrates a 5th-century public water pool and tirtha site in what is now south Laos. This inscription in Southeast Asia is significant as it provides an independent terminus ante quem for the cited verses of the Mahabharata and associated Hindu legends. It is also notable as it explicitly mentions the Prabhasa tirtha for Shiva on Gujarat coastline in verses 1–4 of Side C of the inscription steele.

History

The site of Somnath has been a pilgrimage site from ancient times on account of being a Triveni Sangam (the confluence of three rivers: Kapila, Hiran and Saraswati. Soma, the Moon god (Chandradeva), is believed to have lost his lustre due to a curse, and he bathed in the Sarasvati River at this site to regain it. The result is said to be the waxing and waning of the moon. The name of the town, Prabhas, meaning lustre, as well as the alternative names Someshvar and Somnath ("the lord of the moon" or "the moon god"), arise from this tradition.

According to popular tradition documented by J. Gordon Melton, the first Lord Shiva temple at Somnath is said to have been built at some unknown time in the past. The second temple is said to have been built at the same site by the "Yadava kings" of Vallabhi around 649 CE. In 725 CE, Al-Junayd, the Arab governor of Sindh is said to have destroyed the second temple as part of his invasions of Gujarat and Rajasthan. The Gurjara-Pratihara king Nagabhata II is said to have constructed the third temple in 815 CE, a large structure of red sandstone.

Nagabhata II is known to have visited tirthas in Saurashtra, including Someshvara (the Lord of the Moon), which may or may not be a reference to a Lord Shiva temple because the town itself was known by that name. The Chaulukya (Solanki) king Mularaja possibly built the first temple at the site sometime before 997 CE, even though some historians believe that he may have renovated a smaller earlier temple.

Ruined Somnath temple, 1869

In 1024, during the reign of Bhima I, the prominent Turkic Muslim ruler Mahmud of Ghazni raided Gujarat, plundering the Somnath temple and breaking its jyotirlinga. He took away a booty of 20 million dinars. Historians expect the damage to the temple by Mahmud to have been minimal because there are records of pilgrimages to the temple in 1038, which make no mention of any damage to the temple. However, powerful legends with intricate detail developed in the Turko-Persian literature regarding Mahmud's raid, which "electrified" the Muslim world according to scholar Meenakshi Jain. They later boasted that Mahmud had killed 50,000 devotees who tried to defend the temple, a formulaic figure.

At the time of Mahmud's attack, the temple appears to have been a wooden structure, which is said to have decayed in time (kalajirnam). Kumarapala (r. 1143–72) rebuilt it in "excellent stone and studded it with jewels," according to an inscription in 1169.

During its 1299 invasion of Gujarat, Alauddin Khalji's army, led by Ulugh Khan, defeated the Vaghela king Karna, and sacked the Somnath temple. Legends in the later texts Kanhadade Prabandha (15th century) and Khyat (17th century) state that the Jalore ruler Kanhadadeva later recovered the Somnath idol and freed the Hindu prisoners, after an attack on the Delhi army near Jalore. However, other sources state that the idol was taken to Delhi, where it was thrown to be trampled under the feet of Muslims. These sources include the contemporary and near-contemporary texts including Amir Khusrau's Khazainul-Futuh, Ziauddin Barani's Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi and Jinaprabha Suri's Vividha-tirtha-kalpa. It is possible that the story of Kanhadadeva's rescue of the Somnath idol is a fabrication by the later writers. Alternatively, it is possible that the Khalji army was taking multiple idols to Delhi, and Kanhadadeva's army retrieved one of them.

The temple was rebuilt by Mahipala I, the Chudasama king of Saurashtra in 1308 and the lingam was installed by his son Khengara sometime between 1331 and 1351. As late as the 14th century, Gujarati Muslim pilgrims were noted by Amir Khusrow to stop at that temple to pay their respects before departing for the Hajj pilgrimage. In 1395, the temple was destroyed for the third time by Zafar Khan, the last governor of Gujarat under the Delhi Sultanate and later founder of Gujarat Sultanate. In 1451, it was desecrated by Mahmud Begada, the Sultan of Gujarat.

By 1665, the temple, one of many, was ordered to be destroyed by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. In 1702, he ordered that if Hindus revived worship there, it should be demolished completely.

The Maratha expansion in northern India revived many dilapidated temples. The Ahilyabai Holkar of Indore built a temple at Somnath. Mahadaji Shinde brought silver gates from Gazni and installed them in Gopal Mandir of Ujjain.

Description

Archaeological studies

The Somnath temple site and coastline has been excavated for archaeological evidence by Indian teams. The first major excavation was completed in 1950–51 just before the Somnath temple was reconstructed. It was led by B.K. Thapar, one of the Director General of Archaeological Survey of India, and a report published. This Thapar study yielded direct and substantial evidence of a 10th century or earlier large temple. B.K. Thapar estimated the older temple to be from the 9th-century, while Dhaky states to more likely from the 10th-century, i.e. from 960–973 CE. The Thapar study also found artifacts and ruins with ancient scripts such as Brahmi and later scripts such as proto-Nagari and Nagari, thus confirming the antiquity of Somnath-Patan through at least much of the 1st-millennium.

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.

Temple architecture

Pre-11th century temple

The floor plan and ruins of a pre-1000 CE temple were unearthed during the archaeological excavations led by B.K. Thapar. Most of the temple is lost, but the remains of the foundation, the lower structure as well as pieces of the temple ruins suggest an "exquisitely carved, rich" temple. According to Dhaky – a scholar of Indian temple architecture, this is the earliest known version of the Somnath temple. It was, what historic Sanskrit vastu sastra texts call the tri-anga sandhara prasada. Its garbhagriya (sanctum) was connected to a mukhamandapa (entrance hall) and gudhamandapa.

The temple opened to the east. The stylobate of this destroyed temple had two parts: the 3 feet high pitha-socle and the vedibandha-podium. The pitha had a tall bhitta, joined to the jadyakumbha, ornamented with what Dhaky calls "crisp and charming foliage pattern". The kumbha of the Vedibandha had a Surasenaka with a niche that contained the figure of Lakulisa – this evidence affirms that the lost temple was a Shiva temple.

The excavations yielded pieces of one at the western end, which suggests that the kumbhas were aligned to the entire wall. Above the kalaga moulding was an antarapatta, states Dhaky, but no information is available to determine its design or ornamentation. The surviving fragment of the kapotapali that was discovered suggests that at "intervals, it was decorated with contra-posed half thakaras, with large, elegant, and carefully shaped gagarakas in suspension graced the lower edge of the kapotapali", states Dhaky. The garbhagrha had a vedibandha, possibly with a two-layered jangha with images on the main face showing the influence of the late Maha-Maru style. Another fragment found had a "beautifully moulded rounded pillarette and a ribbed khuraccadya-awning topped the khattaka".

The mukhacatuski, states Dhaky, likely broke and fell immediately after the destructive hit by Mahmud's troops. These fragments suffered no further erosion or damage one would normally expect, likely because it was left in the foundation pit of the new Somnath temple that was rebuilt quickly after Mahmud left. The "quality of craftmanship" in these fragments is "indeed high", the carvings of the lost temple were "rich and exquisite", states Dhaky. Further, a few pieces have an inscription fragment in the 10th-century characters – which suggests that this part of the temple or the entire temple was built in the 10th-century.

19th-century ruined Somnath temple partly converted into mosque

The efforts of colonial era archaeologists, photographers and surveyors have yielded several reports on the architecture and arts seen at the Somnath temple ruins in the 19th century. The earliest survey reports of Somnath temple and the condition of the Somanatha-Patan-Veraval town in the 19th-century were published between 1830 and 1850 by British officers and scholars. Alexander Burnes surveyed the site in 1830, calling Somnath site as "far-famed temple and city". He wrote:

Floor plan of the main Somnath temple, Veraval Gujarat

The great temple of Somnath stands on a rising ground on the north-west side of Pattan, inside the walls, and is only separated by them from the sea. It may be scen from a distance of twenty-five miles. It is a massy stone building, evidently of some antiquity. Unlike Hindu temples gencrally, it consists of three domes, the first of which forms the roof of the entrance, the second is the interior of the temple, the third was the sanctum sanctorum, wherein were deposited the riches of Hindi devotion. The two external domes are diminutive: the central one has an elevation of more than thirty feet, tapering to the summit in fourteen steps, and is about forty feet in diameter. It is perfect, but the images which have once adorned both the interior and exterior of the building are mutilated, and the black polished stones which formed its floor have been removed by the citizens for less pious purposes. Two marble slabs, with sentences from the Koran, and inscriptions regarding Mangrol Isa, point out where that Mohammedan worthy rests. They arc on the western side of the city, and the place is still frequented by the devout Moslem. Near it is a cupola, supported on pillars, to mark the grave of the sultan's cashkeeper, with many others; and the whole city is encircled by the remains of mosques, and one vast cemetery, ‘The field of battle, where the “infidels” were conquered, is also pointed out, and the massy walls, excavated ditch, paved streets, and squared-stone buildings of Pattan itself, proclaim its former greatness. At present the city is a perfect ruin, its houses are nearly unoccupied and but for a new and substantial temple, erected to house the god of Somnath by that wonderful woman, Ahalya Bai, the wife of Holkar.

— Alexander Burnes

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. Burnes also summarized some of the mythologies he heard, the bitter communal sentiments and accusations, as well as the statements by garrisoned "Arabs of the Junagar [Junagadh] chief" about their victories in this "infidel land".

The survey report of Captain Postans was published in 1846. He states:

Pattan, and all the part of the country wherein it is situated, is now under a Mohamedan ruler, the Nawab of Junagadh, and the city itself offers the most curious specimen of any I have ever seen of its original Hindu character, preserved throughout its walls, gates, and buildings, despite Mohammedan innovations and a studied attempt to obliterate the traces of paganism ; even the very musjids, which are here and there encountered in the town, have been raised by materials from the sacred edifices of the conquered, or, as it is said by the historians of Sindh, “the true believers turned the temples of the idol worshippers into places of prayer.” Old Pattan is to this day a Hindu city in all but its inhabitants—perhaps one of the most interesting historical spots in Western India. [...] Somnath assumed the appearance it now presents, of a temple evidently of pagan original altered by the introduction of a Mohammedan style of architecture in various portions, but leaving its general plan and minor features unmolested. [...] The temple consists of one large hall in an oblong form, from one end of which proceeds a small square chamber, or sanctum. The centre of the hall is occupied by a noble dome over an octagon of eight arches; the remainder of the roof terraced and supported by numerous pillars. There are three éntrances. The sides of the building face to the cardinal points, and the principal entrance appears to be on the eastern side. These doorways ave unusually high and wide, in the Pyramidal or Egyptian form, decreasing towards the top; they add much to the effect of the building. Internally, the whole presents a scene of complete destruction; the pavement is everywhere covered with heaps of stones and rubbish; the facings of the walls, capitals of the pillars, in short, every portion possessing anything approaching to ornament, having been defaced or removed, (if not by Mahmud, by those who subsequently converted this temple into its present semi-Mohammedan appearance). [...] Externally the whole of the buildings are most elaborately carved and ornamented with figures, single and in groups of various dimensions, Many of them appear to have been of some size; but so laboriously was the work of mutilation carried on here, that of the larger figures scarcely a trunk has been left, whilst few even of the most minute remain uninjured. The western side is the most perfect: here the pillars and ornaments are in excellent preservation. The front entrance is ornamented with a portico, and surmounted by two slender minarets ornaments so much in the Mohammedan style, that they, as well as the domes, have evidently been added to the original building.

— Thomas Postans

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:

The old temple of Somanatha is situated in the town, and stands upon the shore towards its eastern end, being separated from the sea by a heavily built retaining wall which prevents the former from washing away the ground around the foundations of the shrine. Little now remains of the walls of the temple; they have been, in great measure, rebuilt and patched with rubble to convert the building into a mosque. The great dome, indeed the whole roof and the stumpy minars, one of which remains above the front entrance, are portions of the Muhammadan additions. [...] One fact alone shows that the temple was built on a large scale, and that is the presence in its basement of the asvathara or horse-moulding. It was probably about the same size, in plan, as the Rudra Mala at Siddhapur, being, in length, about 140 feet over all. [...] The walls, or, at least, the outer casing of them, having in great part fallen, there is revealed, in several places, the finished masonry and mouldings of the basement of an older temple, which appears not to have been altogether removed when the temple, we now see, was built, portions of this older temple being apparently left in situ to form the heart and core of the later masonry. [...] For several reasons, I have come to the conclusion that the ruined temple, as it now stands, save for the Muhammadan additions, is a remnant of the temple built by Kumarapala, king of Gujarat, about AD 1169.

— Henry Cousens

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.

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 15 metres (49 ft) in height above the sanctum, and it has an 8.2-metre-tall flag pole at the top. According to Ananda Coomaraswamy – an art and architecture historian, the earlier Somnath temple ruin followed the Solanki-style, which is Nagara architecture inspired by the Vesara ideas found in Western regions of India.

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 Tejpal temple at Mt 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. The new temple is the top pilgrimage site in Gujarat along with Dwarka.

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 the "infidels" 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 pre-Islamic Arab goddess, for example. 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, particularly Hindu nationalists, it is a question of their heritage, their sense of sacred "time and space", states Peter van der Veer. Its history raises questions of "tolerance and spiritual values" to expect, and of what they perceive is a symbol of "fanaticism and foreign oppression". The Somnath temple has been leveraged by Hindu nationalists to revisit India's history and agitate over its sacred spaces including contested sites such as Ayodhya. Mahmud and Aurangzeb along with the ideology that inspired them are remembered as "enemies of the Hindu nation". They are asserted as two "historical facts", the former as the first and the latter as the last systematic destroyers of Somnath temple.

Hindu nationalists have used the Somnath temple as a rallying cause. It 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 and communal significance". The rebuilding was a symbol, it was Hindu repudiation of "almost a thousand years of Muslim domination, and reassertion of Hindu supremacy" in post-partitioned India.

The reconstructed Somnath temple has been the top 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.

Pakistan and West Asia

In the modern era textbooks of Pakistan, the sack of Somnath temple is praised and the campaign of Sultan Mahmud of Ghaznavi is glorified as a "champion of Islam". According to Syed Zaidi – a scholar of Islamist Militancy, a school book in Pakistan titled Our World portrays Somnath temple as a "place where all the Hindu rajas used to get together" and think about "fighting the Muslims". Mahmud went to this temple and "blew the idol in pieces" and "this success was a source of happiness for the whole Muslim world". 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.

Gallery

• 
  Somnath Temple in 1957
• 
  Somnath Temple in 2012
• 
  Brahma-Shiva-Vishnu above mukhamandapa
• 
  Somnath Temple at dawn
• 
  Somnath converted into mosque, partly correct, partly embellished sketch (1850 CE)

See also

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

References

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Further reading

• Somnath: The Shrine Eternal - by K M.Munshi
• Meenakshi Jain (2019), Flight of Deities and Rebirth of Temples, ISBN 978-81-7305-619-2, ABI Prints & Publishing
• Kavita Singh (2010), "The Temple's Eternal Return: Swaminarayan Akshardham Complex in Delhi", pp. 73-75,Artibus Asiae, Vol 70, no. 1, academia.edu

External links

• Somnath Temple Official Website