Somnath Temple

Prabhasa, the coastal tirtha where Somnath stands, is far older than any surviving temple. The Mahabharata and the Bhagavata Purana describe Prabhasa as a sacred bathing place on the Saurashtra coast, and Kalidasa's Raghuvamsa names Somanatha-Prabhasa among the great tirthas. Archaeologists have found that the site was settled in the Harappan period, though no trace of an ancient temple has been found. The name Someshvara appears in records from the 9th century: the Gurjara-Pratihara king Nagabhata II recorded a visit to Someshvara among the tirthas of Saurashtra.

Historians are uncertain when the first temple was built. The Chaulukya (Solanki) king Mularaja is believed to have built a temple here before 997 CE, perhaps renovating an older, smaller shrine. Excavations led by B. K. Thapar in 1950–51 uncovered the plan and finely carved fragments of a temple dated to the 9th or 10th century. The Somnath Trust preserves a tradition of four early temples, built in gold by Soma, in silver by Ravi, in wood by Krishna and in stone by King Bhimadeva.

In January 1026, Mahmud of Ghazni raided Somnath, desecrated the Jyotirlinga and carried away great wealth; the raid is recorded by the Persian scholar Al-Biruni and other chroniclers. An inscription of 1038 suggests worship had resumed within a few years under the Chaulukya king Bhima I. According to an inscription of 1169, King Kumarapala rebuilt the temple in stone, replacing a decaying structure.

In 1299 the temple was sacked by the army of Alauddin Khalji under Ulugh Khan and Nusrat Khan; local tradition remembers Veer Hamirji Gohil, who is said to have died defending it. The Chudasama king Mahipala I rebuilt it around 1308. It was damaged again in 1395 and 1451, and the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb ordered its destruction in 1665 and again in 1706, after which the ruins were partly converted into a mosque.

Around 1783 Queen Ahilyabai Holkar of Indore built a separate, smaller temple close to the ruins so that worship of the Jyotirlinga could continue; it is still known as the Old Somnath or Ahilyabai temple and is maintained by the Somnath Trust.

After Independence, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel visited the ruins in November 1947 and resolved that Somnath would be rebuilt. On Mahatma Gandhi's advice the work was funded by public contributions, and the Shree Somnath Trust, with K. M. Munshi as a leading figure, was formed to oversee it. The ruins were cleared in 1950 and the new temple was built by the traditional Sompura craftsmen of Gujarat. On 11 May 1951, President Rajendra Prasad performed the pran-pratishtha of the Jyotirlinga and dedicated the temple to the nation. Work on the rest of the complex continued for decades: on 1 December 1995 President Shankar Dayal Sharma attended the kalash-pratishtha of the Nritya Mandap.

The temple is administered by the Shree Somnath Trust, whose chairman is currently Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In 2026 the 'Somnath Swabhiman Parv' marked a thousand years since the first recorded attack of 1026 and 75 years since the reopening of 1951.

The present temple is built in the Maru-Gurjara (Chaulukya or Solanki) tradition of western India, in the form the Somnath Trust calls 'Kailash Mahameru Prasad'. It was designed by Prabhashankarbhai Oghadbhai Sompura, who worked surviving fragments of the old temple into the new design. The temple has three main parts on an east–west axis: the garbhagriha (sanctum), the sabha mandap (assembly hall) and the nritya mandap (dance hall).

According to the Somnath Trust, the shikhara over the sanctum rises 155 feet. It is crowned by a kalash said to weigh 10 tons and a dhwaja-dand (flagstaff) 27 feet tall; devotees sponsor the changing of the flag several times a day. The outer walls carry bands of carved figures of deities, dancers and decorative motifs in sandstone, and differences in stone colour still distinguish the few old panels from the new.

On the seaward side stands the Baan Stambh (arrow pillar), which the Trust describes as marking the 'Abadhit Samudra Marg', the unobstructed sea route from this shore to the South Pole. Excavations show that the 10th-century temple on this site was a richly carved shrine with a sanctum, an enclosed hall and an entrance porch, and that its walls carried an image of Lakulisha, confirming its dedication to Shiva.