Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. I, Part I: History of Gujarat c19.s2.t1.103.3

c19.s2.t1.103.3

Its worshippers believed the stone to possess the power of curing all diseases, and the mariners and the wanderers over the deep between Sofála and China addressed their prayers to it as their patron deity.^5 Ibn Asír (A.D. 1121) gives a detailed account of the temple of Somnáth and its ancient grandeur. He says Somnáth was the greatest of all the idols of Hind. Pilgrims by the hundred thousand met at the temple especially at the times of eclipses and believed that the ebb and flow of the tide was the homage paid by the sea to the god. Everything of the most precious was brought to Somnáth and the temple was endowed with more than 10,000 villages. Jewels of incalculable value were stored in the temple and to wash the idol water from the sacred stream of the Ganga was brought every day over a distance of two hundred farsangs (1200 miles). A thousand Brahmans were on duty every day in the temple, three hundred and fifty singers and dancers performed before the image, and three hundred barbers shaved the pilgrims who intended to pay their devotions at the shrine. Every one of these servants had a settled allowance. The temple of Somnáth was built upon fifty pillars of teakwood covered with lead. The idol, which did not appear to be sculptured,^6 stood three cubits out of the ground and had a girth of three cubits. The idol was by itself in a dark chamber lighted by most exquisitely jewelled chandeliers.