Somnath Temple
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.