"The
Somnath temple signifies that the power of reconstruction is always greater
than the power of destruction" – Dr. Rajendra Prasad, First President of
the Republic of India.
The information
in this article is partly from my visit to Somnath temple and mostly from the
internet.
The Somnath
temple located in Prabhas Patan near Junagadh in Saurashtra on the western
coast of Gujarat is believed to be the first among the twelve Jyotirlinga
shrines of Shiva. It is an important pilgrimage and tourist spot in Gujarat.
Reconstructed several times in the past after repeated destruction by several
Muslim invaders and rulers, the present temple was reconstructed in the Chaulukya
style of Hindu temple architecture and completed in May 1951. The
reconstruction was started under the orders of the Home Minister of India Sri Vallabhbhai
Patel and was completed after his death.
The temple is
considered sacred due to the various legends connected to it. Somnath means
"Lord of the Soma", an epithet of Lord Shiva.
The Somnath
temple is known as "the Shrine Eternal", following a book by K. M.
Munshi by this title and his narration of the temple's destruction and
reconstruction many times in history.
According to
tradition, the Shivalinga in Somnath is the first of the 12 Jyotirlingas in
India, where Shiva is believed to have appeared as a fiery column of light. The
Jyotirlingas are taken as the supreme, undivided reality out of which Shiva
partly appears.
Each of the 12
Jyotirlinga sites takes the name of a different manifestation of Shiva. At all
these sites, the primary image is a Lingam representing the beginning-less and
endless Stambha (pillar), symbolizing the infinite nature of Shiva. In addition
to the one at Somnath in Gujarat, the others are Mallikarjuna in Srisailam-Andhra
Pradesh, Mahakaleswar in Ujjain-Madhya Pradesh, Omkareshwar in Khandwa-Madhya
Pradesh, Kedarnath in Rudraprayag-Uttarakhand, Bhimashankar in Maharashtra, Vishwanath
in Varanasi-Uttar Pradesh, Trimbakeshwar in Nashik-Maharashtra, Baidyanath in
Deoghar-Jharkhand, Nageshvara in Dwarka-Gujarat, Ramanathaswamy in Rameshwaram-Tamil
Nadu, and Grishneshwar in Aurangabad- Maharashtra.
History:
The site of
Somnath has been a pilgrimage site since ancient times on account of being a
Triveni Sangam (the confluence of three rivers: Kapila, Hiran and the mythical
Sarasvati). Soma, the Moon God, 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 the waxing and waning of the moon, no doubt an allusion to the waxing
and waning of the tides at this seashore location. 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.
History of the
temple:
According to
popular tradition documented by J. Gordon Melton, the first Shiva temple at
Somnath is believed 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 Shiva temple because the
town itself was known by that name. The Chalukyas (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.
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. Powerful legends with intricate detail
developed in the Turko-Persian literature regarding Mahmud's raid say that this
raid "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.
The temple at
the time of Mahmud's attack appears to have been a wooden structure. Kumarapala
(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 destroyed the Somnath temple. 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. Jalore ruler Kanhadadeva
later recovered the Somnath idol and freed the Hindu prisoners, after an attack
on the Delhi army. 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 the 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.
Reconstruction
during 1950–1951:
Before
independence, Veraval was part of the Junagadh State, whose ruler had acceded
to Pakistan in 1947. After India refused to accept its decision, the state was
made a part of India and Deputy Prime Minister Patel came to Junagadh on 12
November 1947 to direct the stabilization of the state by the Indian Army and
at the same time ordered the reconstruction of the Somnath temple.
When Patel, K.
M. Munshi and other leaders of the Congress went to Mahatma Gandhi with their
proposal to reconstruct the Somnath temple, Gandhi blessed the move but
suggested that the funds for the construction should be collected from the
public and the temple should not be funded by the state. He expressed that he
was proud to associate himself to the project of renovation of the temple.
However, soon both Gandhi and Sardar Patel died and the task of reconstruction
of the temple continued under Munshi, who was the Minister for Food and Civil
Supplies, Government of India.
The ruins were
pulled down in October 1950 and the mosque present at that site was shifted a few
kilometres away by using construction vehicles. In May 1951, Rajendra Prasad,
the first President of the Republic of India, invited by K M Munshi, performed
the installation ceremony for the temple. The President said in his address,
"It is my view that the reconstruction of the Somnath Temple will be
complete on that day when not only a magnificent edifice will arise on this
foundation, but the mansion of India's prosperity will be, really that
prosperity of which the ancient temple of Somnath was a symbol." He added:
"The Somnath temple signifies that the power of reconstruction is always greater
than the power of destruction."
The present
temple is built in the Chaulukya style of temple architecture or "Kailash
Mahameru Prasad" style and reflects the skill of the Sompura Salats, one
of Gujarat's master masons. The temple's śikhara, or main spire, is 15 metres
in height, and it has an 8.2-metre tall flag pole at the top.
The temple is
situated at such a place that there is no land in a straight line between
Somnath seashore and Antarctica, such an inscription in Sanskrit is found on
the Bāṇastambha (Arrow pillar) erected on the sea-protection wall. The Bāṇastambha
mentions that it stands at a point on the Indian landmass that is the first
point on land in the north to the South Pole at that particular longitude.
No comments:
Post a Comment