A Shivling of the Somnath Temple that was destroyed a thousand years ago, when Mahmud Ghazni had invaded India, is in the process of being revived. A few Agnihotri priests had taken the broken pieces of the Shivling. Sitaram Shastry, a priest from the lineage of saints who has been preserving the pieces of the sacred Shivling, met spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar to get the Lingam consecrated at the Somnath Temple.
Among the current generation of priests, he has been the custodian of the Lingam for the last 21 years.
A thousand years ago, when Mahmud of Ghazni invaded India, he destroyed many places of religious worship, including one of the most revered Jyotirlingas—the Somnath Temple. On his 18th attack, he was able to destroy the Shiva Lingam, which was 3 feet tall and remained suspended 2 feet from the floor, defying gravity.
In 1924, the then Shankaracharya instructed the family who had preserved the broken pieces of the Shivling to keep it hidden for 100 years and to continue worshipping it. Now, the present Shankaracharya has guided the family to bring the Linga to Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.
“With the guidance of the current Shankaracharya, I had been sent to meet Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in Bangalore. He has been chosen to facilitate this great task (of consecrating the Lingam in Somnath),” said Sitaram Shastry, a priest from the lineage of saints who have been preserving the pieces of the sacred Lingam.
“I received these statues 21 years ago. Before this, my uncle had kept it. He gave me this and ordered me to install at least 2 of them in the Somnath Temple in Gujarat. This is the real statue of Somnath. It’s been 1,000 years. My uncle ordered me to install it in Somnath Ji. It was given to my uncle by his guru, Pranavendra Saraswati Ji. After that, my uncle worshipped it for 60 years. This statue has come to me, him, and his guru with ‘Guru-Pratha’ only,” Shastry said in a video.
Sitaram Shastry shared that he met various saints with regard to re-installing the statues, including spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who has assured support to him in his resolution.
“I recently took it to Shankaracharya Ji. I also took it to Dhirendra Saraswati Ji. He told me that once the work of Ram Mandir gets complete, they will initiate the process of installation of this Shiv Lingam, but he now has attained Samadhi. After that, I took these to Vijendra Saraswati Ji, and he was happy to see them. He told me to bring it to Guru Sri Sri Ravishankar in Bengaluru and stated that he would help me to install this. This statue has powers which I wasn’t aware of,” the priest said.
