Somnath Temple

• With an aim to attract devotees to the famous Somnath temple, the Shree Somnath Trust (SST) inaugurated an exhibition at Tent City, the venue of the annual Rann Utsav, in Dhordo village in Kutch district.
  • Rann Utsav is the annual desert carnival organised by the Gujarat government in the Great Rann of Kutch on the Indo-Pakistan border.
  • The carnival is very popular among tourists thanks to the vast White Desert or the salt desert and glorious views of the setting sun it offers.
• Somnath temple is more than 500 km away from Dhordo and thus the famous temple and the White Desert form two different tourist circuits in Gujarat.

ABOUT SOMNATH TEMPLE

• The Somnath temple, also called Somanātha temple or Deo Patan, is located in Prabhas Patan, Veraval in Gujarat, India.
• It is believed to be the first among the twelve Jyotirlinga shrines of Shiva.
• Somanth is mentioned in Rigveda and has been reconstructed several times in the past after repeated destruction by several Muslim invaders and rulers i.e Mahmud Ghazni (1024), attacked by Delhi Sultanate (1297 and 1394) and Aurangzeb (in 1706).
• Post independence, those ruins were demolished and the present Somnath temple was reconstructed in the Māru-Gurjara style of Hindu temple architecture.
• The first Home Minister of India, SardarVallabhbhai Patel was instrumental in the construction of the present temple.
• Renowned temple architect Prabhaschandar designed it and the first President of India Dr. Rajendra Prasad installed the Jyotirling in the new temple on May 11, 1951.

ABOUT MĀRU-GURJARA ARCHITECTURE

• MĀRU-Gurjara architecture or Solaṅkī style, is the style of West Indian temple architecture that originated in Gujarat and Rajasthan from the 11^th to 13^th centuries, under the Chaulukya dynasty (also called Solaṅkī dynasty).