Deo Patan

Deo Patan on the coast of Saurashtra is the site of the Somnath temple, the first of the twelve Jyotirlingas of Shiva. Tradition says the moon god Soma bathed here to recover his radiance, giving the shrine its name Someshvara, lord of the moon.

The Chaulukya king Mularaja built the first stone temple before 997, but in 1026 Mahmud of Ghazni sacked it. The Chaulukya king Kumarapala rebuilt it around 1169, only for Ulugh Khan's army to sack it in 1299; the Chudasama king Mahipala rebuilt it in 1308 and his son Khengara reinstalled the lingam between 1331 and 1351.

Zafar Khan, the Delhi governor who founded the Gujarat Sultanate, destroyed it in 1395, Mahmud Begada desecrated it in 1451, and Aurangzeb ordered its demolition and conversion into a mosque in 1706. In the later eighteenth century Ahilyabai Holkar of Indore built a smaller shrine beside the ruins so that worship could continue.