Somnath is the celebrated city of India, situated on the shore of the sea, and washed by its waves.
Somnath is the celebrated city of India, situated on the shore of the sea, and washed by its waves. Among the wonders of that place was the temple in which was placed the idol called Somnat. This idol was in the middle of the temple without anything to support it from below, or to suspend it from above. It was held in the highest honour among the Hindus, and whoever beheld it floating in the air was struck with amazement, whether he was a Musulman or an infidel. The Hindus used to go on pilgrimage to it whenever there was an eclipse of the moon, and would then assemble there to the number of more than a hundred thousand.
Zakariya says that everything of the most precious was brought there as offerings, and the temple was endowed with more than ten thousand villages. There is a river—the Ganges, which is held sacred between which and Somnat the distance is two hundred parasangs. They used to bring the water of this river to Somnat every day, and wash the temple with it. A thousand Brahmins were employed in worshipping the idol and attending on the visitors, and five hundred damsels sung and danced at the door. All these were maintained upon the endowments of the temple. The edifice was built upon fifty-six pillars of teak, covered with lead. The shrine of the idol was dark but was lighted by jewelled chandeliers of great value. Near it was a chain of gold bells weighing two hundred maans. When a portion of the night watch closed, this chain used to be shaken to rouse a fresh lot of Brahmins to perform worship.
When the Sultan Yamin-ud Daula Mahmud went to wage religious war against India, he made great efforts to capture and destroy Somnat, in the hope that the Hindus would then become Muhammadans. He arrived there in the middle of December in the year 1025. The king looked upon the idol with wonder, and gave orders for the seizing of the spoil, and the appropriation of the treasures. There were many idols of gold and silver and vessels set with jewels, all of which had been sent there by the greatest personages in India. The value of the things found in the temples of the idols exceeded twenty thousand dinars. When the king asked his companions what they had to say about the marvel of the idol, and of its staying in the air without pedestal or support, several maintained that it was upheld by some hidden support. The king directed a person to go and feel all around and above and below it with a spear, which he did, but met with no obstacle. One of the attendants then stated his opinion that the canopy was made of lodestone, and the idol of iron, and that the ingenious builder had skilfully contrived that the magnet should not exercise a greater force on any one side—hence, the idol was suspended in the middle. Some coincided, others differed. Permission was obtained from the Sultan to remove some stones from the top of the canopy to settle the point. When two stones were removed from the summit, the idol swerved to one side, when more were taken away, it inclined still further, until at last it rested on the ground.
Zakariya bin Muhammad bin Mahmud writes in his thirteenth century book titled "Asaru-l Bilad wa Akhbaru-l’ Ibad" about Somnath.
https://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/h_es/h_es_asaru_frameset.htm
Zakariya says that everything of the most precious was brought there as offerings, and the temple was endowed with more than ten thousand villages. There is a river—the Ganges, which is held sacred between which and Somnat the distance is two hundred parasangs. They used to bring the water of this river to Somnat every day, and wash the temple with it. A thousand Brahmins were employed in worshipping the idol and attending on the visitors, and five hundred damsels sung and danced at the door. All these were maintained upon the endowments of the temple. The edifice was built upon fifty-six pillars of teak, covered with lead. The shrine of the idol was dark but was lighted by jewelled chandeliers of great value. Near it was a chain of gold bells weighing two hundred maans. When a portion of the night watch closed, this chain used to be shaken to rouse a fresh lot of Brahmins to perform worship.
When the Sultan Yamin-ud Daula Mahmud went to wage religious war against India, he made great efforts to capture and destroy Somnat, in the hope that the Hindus would then become Muhammadans. He arrived there in the middle of December in the year 1025. The king looked upon the idol with wonder, and gave orders for the seizing of the spoil, and the appropriation of the treasures. There were many idols of gold and silver and vessels set with jewels, all of which had been sent there by the greatest personages in India. The value of the things found in the temples of the idols exceeded twenty thousand dinars. When the king asked his companions what they had to say about the marvel of the idol, and of its staying in the air without pedestal or support, several maintained that it was upheld by some hidden support. The king directed a person to go and feel all around and above and below it with a spear, which he did, but met with no obstacle. One of the attendants then stated his opinion that the canopy was made of lodestone, and the idol of iron, and that the ingenious builder had skilfully contrived that the magnet should not exercise a greater force on any one side—hence, the idol was suspended in the middle. Some coincided, others differed. Permission was obtained from the Sultan to remove some stones from the top of the canopy to settle the point. When two stones were removed from the summit, the idol swerved to one side, when more were taken away, it inclined still further, until at last it rested on the ground.
Zakariya bin Muhammad bin Mahmud writes in his thirteenth century book titled "Asaru-l Bilad wa Akhbaru-l’ Ibad" about Somnath.
https://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/h_es/h_es_asaru_frameset.htm
Jai Shree Someshwar Mahadev 🙏
ReplyDeleteIt's a pity that Someshvar was broken into pieces and was laid along with other stones to another masjid elsewhere...
ReplyDeleteAlso the door of Someshvar was carried over too and was laid in the final resting place of Mahmud Gazni in present day Afghanistan.
Feel sad ! Where was the great knowledge of dhanurveda gone ?? India though had such a rich knowledge of various astras never showed a sign in kali yuga ( if I'm right). We don't invade but should have protected ourselves.
ReplyDeleteIf we don't put efforts in learning now, our next generation will be saying the same.
ReplyDeleteFinally, we have the temple of the world's first jyotirlingam.
ReplyDeleteBut the question is not only what were we doing at that time, question is what are we doing now? We are still doing same thing. We are too afraid to fight for our temples, or atleast doing it non-violently too. Inspite of all evidences, written refrences, and proofs produced at court we couldn't build a single temple at Ayodhya - the city of Ikshwaku. Ayodhya, Mathura, Srinagar - all have been captured. Let alone building temples we can't even pass a single law that appears to be for indian culture or indian religion. And not even that any dicision in which a hindu is getting justice would be termed communal and any dicision which unfairly favours non-hindu would be termed secular and would be accepted for the sake of appeasement.
Were we really weak to not resist ghazini? No, our king defeated him 17 times, and each time he cried after taking names of our lord, our country, so he was released, last time leaved him only after, he sweared of kuran. But, we had wolves in the disguise of sheep in our herd. In 18th time Jaychand told every secret thing which was highly confendential, in order to get his revenge, and get some post under new ruler, and we lose the war.
Similarly when rajputs were fighting mughals, some of coward Kings like Mansingh collaborated with Akbar instead and got place in his court. Had this not happened we wouldn't had been slaves of Arabs for 600 of years, British of 200 years, and fake independent India under greedy politicians for 70 years.
But what about now? There are now carores of jaychands and Mansinghs who eats of India but sings of someone else. We couldn't get back our independent India as what was before, we were under Yavanis, then more dangerous English and then even more dangerous the selfish vote-hungry politicians
We have rebuilt only 1 temple but we still are missing 4 more highly highly important temples - protest of one of which is in trend the Ram Birthplace. But hardly any Hindu takes it seriously.
We lost our 44,000 important temples , and fought for freedom countinously for 800 years excepting it to come in future when we get Independence, but the result is before us.
https://dolphinpost.news/these-5-traitors-can-not-be-forgotten/