Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. I, Part I: History of Gujarat c19.s2.t1.103.2

c19.s2.t1.103.2

how he set up and called the Moon-Lord a stone which¹² for ages had lain on the sea shore less than three miles to the west of the mouth of the Sarasvati, and to the east of the site of the golden castle of Bárwi (Veraval) the residence of Básúdeo and near the scene of his death and of the destruction of his people the Yádavas. The waxing and the waning of the moon caused the flood that hid the Lingam and the ebb that showed it and proved that the Moon was its servant who bathed it regularly. Al Bírúni notices¹³ that in his time the castellated walls and other fortifications round the temple were not more than a hundred years old. Al Bírúni represents the upper part of the Lingam as hung with massive and bejewelled gold chains. These chains together with the upper half of the idol were, he observes, carried away by the Emir Mahmúd to Ghazna, where a part of the idol was used to form one of the steps of the Assembly Mosque and the other part was left to lie with Chakra Swám, the Thánesar idol, in the maidan or hippodrome of Mahmúd's capital. Somnáth, says Al Bírúni,^4 was the greatest of the Lingams worshipped in India where in the countries to the south-west of Sindh the worship of these emblems abounds. A jar of Ganges water and a basket of Kashmir flowers were brought daily to Somnáth.