In fact, piratical habits continued in the islands off
the coast of Kattiawar down to our own day.
Properly speaking, three separate things are lumped together as Somnath:
(1) The Port, properly called Verawal, on a beautiful little bay; (2) the
City of Deva-Pattan, Somnath-Pattan, or Prabhas, occupying a prominence on
the south side of the bay, having a massive wall and towers, and many
traces of ancient Hindu workmanship, though the vast multitude of tombs
around shows the existence of a large Mussulman population at some time;
and among these are dates nearly as old as our Traveller's visit; (3) The
famous Temple (or, strictly speaking, the object of worship in that
Temple) crowning a projecting rock at the south-west angle of the city,
and close to the walls. Portions of columns and sculptured fragments strew
the soil around.
Notwithstanding the famous story of Mahmud and the image stuffed with
jewels, there is little doubt that the idol really termed Somnath (Moon's
Lord) was nothing but a huge columnar emblem of Mahadeo. Hindu authorities
mention it as one of the twelve most famous emblems of that kind over
India, and Ibn Asir's account, the oldest extant narrative of Mahmud's
expedition, is to the same effect. Every day it was washed with water
newly brought from the Ganges. Mahmud broke it to pieces, and with a
fragment a step was made at the entrance of the Jami' Mosque at Ghazni.
The temples and idols of Pattan underwent a second visitation at the hands
of Alauddin's forces a few years after Polo's visit (1300),[1] and this
seems in great measure to have wiped out the memory of Mahmud. The temple,
as it now stands deserted, bears evident tokens of having been converted
into a mosque. A good deal of old and remarkable architecture remains, but
mixed with Moslem work, and no part of the building as it stands is
believed to be a survival from the time of Mahmud; though part may belong
to a reconstruction which was carried out by Raja Bhima Deva of Anhilwara
about twenty-five years after Mahmud's invasion. It is remarkable that Ibn
Asir speaks of the temple plundered by Mahmud as "built upon 56 pillars of
teak-wood covered with lead." Is it possible that it was a wooden
building?
In connection with this brief chapter on Somnath we present a faithful
representation of those Gates which Lord Ellenborough rendered so
celebrated in connection with that name, when he caused them to be removed
from the Tomb of Mahmud, on the retirement of our troops from Kabul in
1842. His intention, as announced in that once famous paean of his, was
to have them carried solemnly to Guzerat, and there restored to the (long
desecrated) temple.
