சோம்நாத்: முதல் ஜோதிர்லிங்கம், ஏழு முறை அழிக்கப்பட்டது, எனினும் நிரந்தரமானது

The Shore That Has Seen Everything

Somnath stands at the very tip of the Saurashtra peninsula in Gujarat, where three sacred rivers — the Hiran, Kapila, and Saraswati — meet the Arabian Sea at a confluence called the Triveni Sangam. The location is known as Prabhas Kshetra, and it has been sacred in Hindu memory since before recorded history. This is, according to tradition, the spot where Lord Krishna departed from the earth in his final human hour, struck by a hunter's arrow near his heel — the one vulnerable point on his divine body — and where his mortal remains dissolved back into the cosmos. It is also the spot where Chandra, the moon god, performed penance to be released from a curse that had dimmed his light — and where Shiva, pleased with his devotion, restored Chandra's luminance and agreed to reside there as the Jyotirlinga of Somnath, the Lord (nath) of the Moon (soma). The temple built on this spot has witnessed the full sweep of Indian civilisation across 1,500 years of documented history: trade, invasion, destruction, reconstruction, pilgrimage, and the quiet daily worship of ordinary people at an extraordinary place.

The Jyotirlinga — Shiva's Self-Manifested Light