The Somnath temple is the first among the 12 Jyotirlinga shrines of the Lord Shiva. It is a tourist as well as a pilgrimage spot. This Indian temple is believed sacred due to the various legends connected to it. Somnath means "The Protector of the God Moon ". The Somnath temple had been destroyed many times by the Islamic ruler Mahmud of Ghazni. Hence it is called "The Shrine Eternal". This is one of the most famous of Hindu temples in India.
According to legend, Soma, the moon god constructed the temple in gold, Ravan in silver, Krishna in wood and king Bhimdev of Anhilwad in stone. Soma constructed the temple as a gesture after Lord Shiva cured him of an illness. This illness was caused by his father-in-law Daksha Prajapati's curse.
Daksha cursed him to wane as he was infatuated with Rohini and was neglecting the other 26 wives, all 26 of whom were the daughters of Prajapati. It is said that Brahma advised Soma to build the temple in honour of Shiva.
According to the Shivapurana legend,once Brahma and Vishnu had an argument over the supremacy of creation. To examine them, Shiva pieced the three worlds as a big endless pillar of light,the jyotirlinga. Then Vishnu and Brahma separated their ways upwards and downwards to find the end of the light.Brahma told a lie that he had found the end of light.Shiva came to know about the lie and cursed him that he would have no place in ceremonies while Vishnu would be worshipped till the end of time.Shiva appearing as a fiery column of light is considered a jyotirlinga.There were 64 jyotirlingas. Among them 12 are considered as holy and auspicious. Each of the twelve jyothirlinga sites takes the name of the presiding deity - each considered a different manifestation of Shiva.At all these sites, the primary image is a lingam representing the beginning and end symbolizing the infinite nature of Shiva.
The twelve Jyothirlinga are
Somnath in Gujarat,
Mallikarjuna at Shrisailam in Andra Pradesh,
Mahakaleswar at Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh,
Omkareshwar in Madhya Pradesh,
Kedarnath in Uttarakhand,
Bhimashankar in Maharastra,
Viswanath at Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh,
Triambakeshwar in Maharastra,
Vaidyanath Jyotirlinga, Deogarh in Deoghar, Jharkhand,
Nageswar at Dwarka in Gujarat,
Rameshwar at Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu and
Grishneshwar at Aurangabad in Maharastra.
Recently this Hindu temple was reconstructed in November 1947, when Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel visited the area for the integration of Junagadh and mooted a plan for restoration.The current temple was constructed in Chalukyan style or Kailash Mahameru style.The temple's tower is 15 meters in height,and it has an 8.2 meter tall flag staff at the top.
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