Somnath Temple

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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 Lord 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 demolition by multiple Muslim invaders and rulers, notably starting with an attack by mughal Empire 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, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. The reconstruction was completed in May 1951.