Context

• Prime Minister Modi inaugurated and laid the foundation stone of multiple projects in Somnath, Gujarat.

About

• The Somnath temple (also known as the Deo Patan) located in Veraval in Saurashtra on the western coast of Gujarat, is the first among the twelve Jyotirlinga shrines of Shiva.
• As documented by J. Gordon Melton, the first Shiva temple at Somnath is said 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
• The Gurjara-Pratihara king Nagabhata II constructed the third temple in 815 CE, a large structure of red sandstone.
• The present temple was reconstructed in the Chaulukya style of Hindu temple architecture and completed in 1951.
• Presently the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi is the chairman of Somnath Mandir trust.

https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1747666

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