Somnath: The temple by the sea

The Somnath Safarnama is a 6 km route across 3 stops, from Bhalka Tirth to Somnath Temple, part of the Gujarat Heritage Trail. See the whole trail.

Bhalka Tirth

0 km into the route
Bhalka Tirth
Photo: Manoj Khurana, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Bhalka Tirtha in Veraval marks where, in the Mahabharata and the Bhagavata Purana, a hunter named Jara mistook Krishna's foot for a deer and shot an arrow, the event that ended Krishna's life on earth.

Triveni Sangam

5 km into the route
Triveni Sangam
Photo: Sangita Pujara, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Somnath has been a pilgrimage site since ancient times as a Triveni Sangam, the meeting of three rivers: the Kapila, the Hiran and the Saraswati.

Somnath Temple

6 km into the route
Somnath Temple
Photo: Ms Sarah Welch, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Somnath Temple at Prabhas Patan is the first of the twelve jyotirlinga shrines of Shiva and one of Hinduism's most sacred pilgrimage sites. When the first temple was built is uncertain, with estimates ranging from the early first millennium to the 9th century.

3 stops · 6 km · The Gujarat Heritage Trail
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