Somnath Temple

Since it is a Triveni Sangam, Somnath has been a pilgrimage site since ancient times (the confluence of three rivers: Kapila, Hiran and the mythical Saraswati). Soma, the Moon-god, is said to have lost his lustre due to a curse, and in order to regain it, he bathed in the Sarasvati River at this location. The effect is the moon waxing and waning, no doubt a reference to the ebb and flow of the tides at this seaside spot. This practice gave rise to the town's name, Prabhas, which means lustre, as well as the alternate names Someshvar and Somnath ("the lord of the moon" or "the moon god"). According to common legend, the first Shiva temple at Somnath was constructed at an unknown date in the past, as documented by J. Gordon Melton. About 649 CE, the "Yadava kings" of Vallabhi are said to have constructed a second temple on the same site. As part of his invasions of Gujarat and Rajasthan in 725 CE, Al-Junayd, the Arab governor of Sindh, is said to have destroyed the second temple. In 815 CE, the Gurjara-Pratihara king Nagabhata II is said to have built the third temple, a massive red sandstone building. The influential Turkic Muslim ruler Mahmud of Ghazni attacked Gujarat in 1024, plundering the Somnath temple and breaking its jyotirlinga during the reign of Bhima I. He made off with a haul of 20 million dinars. Since there are reports of pilgrimages to the temple in 1038 that make no mention of any damage to the temple, historians believe Mahmud's damage to the temple was minor. According to scholar Meenakshi Jain, strong legends with intricate detail emerged in Turko-Persian literature about Mahmud's raid, which "electrified" the Muslim world. They later boasted that Mahmud had slaughtered 50,000 devotees attempting to protect the temple, a standard number. Source: Wikipedia.org Alauddin Khalji's army, led by Ulugh Khan, defeated the Vaghela king Karna and sacked the Somnath temple during its 1299 invasion of Gujarat. After an assault on the Delhi army near Jalore, legends in the later texts Kanhadade Prabandha (15th century) and Khyat (17th century) say that the Jalore ruler Kanhadadeva later recovered the Somnath idol and released the Hindu prisoners. Source: Wikipedia.org Mahipala I, the Chudasama king of Saurashtra, reconstructed the temple in 1308, and his son Khengara constructed the lingam sometime between 1331 and 1351. Gujarati Muslim tourists were forced to leave at that temple to pay their respects before leaving for the Hajj pilgrimage as late as the 14th century, according to Amir Khusrow. Zafar Khan, the last governor of Gujarat under the Delhi Sultanate and later founder of the Gujarat Sultanate, destroyed the temple for the third time in 1395. The Sultan of Gujarat, Mahmud Begada, desecrated it in 1451.Reconstruction during 1950–1951. Veraval was a component of the Junagadh State before independence, and its ruler had acceded to Pakistan in 1947. After India refused to recognise his decision, the state was annexed by India, and on November 12, 1947, Deputy Prime Minister Patel arrived in Junagadh to direct the Indian Army's stabilisation of the state while also ordering the reconstruction of the Somnath temple. When Patel, K. M. Munshi, and other Congress leaders approached Mahatma Gandhi with their proposal to rebuild the Somnath temple, Gandhi endorsed the plan but recommended that the funds for the project be raised from the general public rather than the state. He shared his pride in being a part of the temple renovation project. However, both Gandhi and Sardar Patel died soon after, and the task of rebuilding the temple was taken up by Munshi, who was the Minister for Food and Civil Supplies in Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's government.