Somnath Templeਸੋਮਨਾਥ ਮੰਦਰ

What is Somnath Temple?

Somnath — ‘Lord of the Soma’, the moon — is one of Hinduism’s holiest shrines: a temple to Shiva standing on the Arabian Sea at Prabhas Patan, a short drive from Veraval in Gujarat’s Gir Somnath district. It is the first of the twelve Jyotirlingas, the shrines where Shiva is worshipped as a self-manifested pillar of light, and tradition places it at the head of the entire Jyotirlinga pilgrimage. The site is a Triveni Sangam — the meeting of the Kapila, Hiran and Sarasvati rivers — and its sanctity reaches back to the great Sanskrit texts: the Mahabharata and the Bhagavata Purana both name Prabhasa as a tirtha, a crossing-place of pilgrimage, on the Saurashtra coast. What makes Somnath unlike any other temple is its history of being broken and built again. Raided in 1026 by Mahmud of Ghazni and sacked and desecrated again across the medieval centuries, it was rebuilt after independence on the orders of Vallabhbhai Patel and consecrated by India’s first President, Rajendra Prasad, on 11 May 1951.

The first Jyotirlinga

The oldest known list of the twelve Jyotirlingas, in chapter 13 of the Shiva Purana’s Jnanasamhita, puts Somnath first — ‘Somesvara in Saurashtra’. That ordering is why the Jyotirlinga pilgrimage is traditionally understood to begin here. The name itself comes from a story the temple town has told for centuries: Soma, the Moon god, is said to have lost his lustre under a curse and to have bathed in the Sarasvati at this spot to regain it — the waxing and waning of the moon following from that bath, and the town’s old name, Prabhasa, meaning ‘splendour’, from the radiance that returned. Exact dates for the earliest temple are lost: estimates run from the early centuries of the first millennium to about the 9th century CE, and archaeology has found traces of a settlement at the site but no early temple. What the records do show is a shrine growing in fame: the Gurjara-Pratihara king Nagabhata II recorded visiting ‘Someshvara’ in the early 800s, and the Chaulukya king Mularaja is believed to have built or rebuilt the temple before 997 CE.

A thousand years of destruction and rebuilding

In January 1026, during the reign of Bhima I, Mahmud of Ghazni crossed the Thar desert and raided Somnath, desecrating its Jyotirlinga and carrying off enormous plunder — an attack confirmed by the 11th-century Persian historian Al-Biruni, who also criticised the raids for ruining India’s prosperity. The shrine recovered quickly: a 1038 inscription is already silent about any ruin, and pilgrimage continued. In 1169, the Solanki king Kumarapala — urged by the ascetic Bhava Brihaspati — rebuilt the temple in ‘excellent stone studded with jewels’, replacing a decaying wooden structure. Alauddin Khalji’s general Ulugh Khan sacked it during the 1299 invasion of Gujarat; the Chudasama king Mahipala I rebuilt it in 1308, and his son Khengara reinstalled the lingam between 1331 and 1351. Zafar Khan destroyed it again in 1395, and Mahmud Begada desecrated it in 1451. Aurangzeb ordered the temple destroyed in 1665 — an order that seems not to have been carried out — and again in 1706, when the order was carried out and part of the shrine converted into a mosque. Worship did not stop: around 1783, Ahilyabai Holkar, the Maratha queen of Malwa renowned for restoring Hindu shrines, built a smaller temple beside the ruins — the Old Somnath Temple — so that the Jyotirlinga’s worship could continue. After independence, with Junagadh’s accession crisis settled, Deputy Prime Minister Vallabhbhai Patel ordered the temple’s reconstruction during his 12 November 1947 visit to Junagadh. Mahatma Gandhi blessed the proposal but insisted the funds come from the public, not the state; the Somnath Trust, headed by K. M. Munshi, took charge. The ruins were cleared in October 1950, and traditional Sompura builders raised the present temple in the Māru-Gurjara style. On 11 May 1951, President Rajendra Prasad performed the installation ceremony.

The temple as it stands today

The present Somnath Temple is built in the Māru-Gurjara style of the Solanki age — a school of the Nagara tradition of temple architecture, with a tall curving shikhara rising over the sanctum. The temple is administered by the Shree Somnath Trust. Beside it stands the smaller shrine built by Ahilyabai Holkar in the late 18th century, still known as the Old Somnath Temple. Maha Shivaratri is the temple’s great festival, when devotees arrive from across the country.

Why pilgrims keep coming back

Beyond its place at the head of the Jyotirlingas, Somnath is counted among India’s five most revered seacoast shrines — alongside Dwarka in Gujarat, Puri in Odisha, and Rameswaram and Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu. Its sanctity in the texts comes from the spot itself — a Triveni Sangam where three rivers meet the sea — and the moon legend that gives the place its name. For many pilgrims, though, it is the history of return that moves them: a shrine that was broken in 1026, in 1299, in 1395 and in 1706, and rebuilt every time. The temple as it stands is itself the monument — to devotion, and to endurance.

How do I visit Somnath?

The temple is about 400 kilometres southwest of Ahmedabad and 82 kilometres south of Junagadh. By rail, Somnath Terminus is 2.5 kilometres away and Veraval Junction about 7 kilometres; the nearest airports are Keshod, 57 kilometres away, and Diu, 85 kilometres.

Is Somnath really the first Jyotirlinga?

In tradition — yes. The Shiva Purana’s Jnanasamhita, the oldest known list of the Jyotirlingas, puts it first, and the pilgrimage traditionally begins here. Historically, the date of the earliest temple is uncertain — archaeology has found no early temple remains — but the site’s fame as a tirtha is recorded from the Mahabharata’s time.