21.12.20

Golden Somnath


The golden era seems to be finally returning for the revered Somnath temple in coastal Saurashtra. After golden pillars, now an ambitious feat of gold plating 1,450 kalash or stone spires atop Somnath temple will be undertaken by the trust, temple administration said.

The Somnath temple trust has already received donations from 500-odd families who are sponsoring the gold plating of 500 spires. More are expected to join this initiative. “The work of turning the entire spires golden will be accomplished by 2021 end,” claimed trustee of Somnath temple trust P K Laheri. The work had begun after lockdown. Temple manager Vijaysinh Chavda said gold-plating of 10 more spires will be undertaken from Monday onwards.

Temple administrators said that a little above 129 kg of gold has already been used to goldplate the sanctum sanctorum, pillars and the door leading to the sanctum sanctorum in the Somnath temple.

Temple manager Vijaysinh Chavda says, “The new project will ensure an overall golden look for the shikhara of the Somnath temple. There are large, medium and small spires and each set of these spires have unique and fixed donations for gold plating.”

To gold-plate large spires a sum of Rs.1.51 lakh has been arrived at for each. Similarly, Rs.1.21 lakh and Rs.1.11 lakh donation has been fixed for gold plating medium and small sized spires respectively.

Each family or individual can donate for one spire.

Each of these families will be called for a small ritual before the gold plate is installed. Chavda reveals that they have received 80 confirmations from donors for large spires. Similarly some 200 donors for medium and 138 donors for large spires have come forward for donations.

“The whole project will be completed by 2021 end. We have installed 60 gold-plated spires till now.

The process had slowed down owing to the lockdown and Covid precautions. We have now evolved a method to complete the task early,” says trustee of Somnath temple trust P K Laheri.

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