Gujarat

 

Somnath temple:

 

        The Somnath temple, also called Somanātha temple or Deo Patan, is located in Prabhas Patan, Veraval in Gujarat, India. One of the most sacred pilgrimage sites for the Hindus, they believe it to be the first among the twelve Jyotirlinga shrines of Shiva.Reconstructed several times in the past after repeated destruction by several Muslim invaders and rulers, it is unclear when the first version of the Somnath temple was built. Estimates for the first Somnath temple vary between the early centuries of the 1st-millennium to about the 9th-century CE.The temple's history is a subject of disputes and remains controversial.

    The Somnath temple was actively studied by colonial era historians and archaeologists in the 19th- and early 20th-century, when its ruins illustrated a historic Hindu temple in the process of being converted into an Islamic mosque.

        The Somanatha temple is located close to the ancient trading port of Veraval, one of three in Gujarat from where Indian merchants departed to trade goods. The 11th-century Persian historian Al-Biruni states that Somnath has become so famous because "it was the harbor for seafaring people, and a station for those who went to and fro between Sufala in the country of Zanj (east Africa) and China". Combined with its repute as an eminent pilgrimage site, its location was well known to the kingdoms within the Indian subcontinent. Literature and epigraphical evidence suggests that the medieval era Veraval-Patan area port was also actively trading with the Middle East and Southeast Asia. This brought wealth and fame to the Veraval area as well as the temple.

        The site of Prabhas Patan was occupied during the Indus Valley Civilisation, 2000–1200 BCE. It was one of very few sites in the Junagadh district to be so occupied. After abandonment in 1200 BCE, it was reoccupied in 400 BCE and continued into the historical period. Prabhas is also close to the other sites similarly occupied: Junagadh, Dwarka, Padri and Bharuch.