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Somanatha Rises Again
The restoration of the hoary temple of Somanatha which contains the first of the twelve jyotirlingas was an act of historic justice that warmed the heart of the nation. And it was because of Munshi's indefatigable efforts that the shrine of Somanatha rose again like the phoenix from its ashes.
The sack of Somanatha by Mahmud Ghazni had left a deep wound in the nation's soul and it hung like a stalactite in the cave of Indian memory. It was but natural that a sensitive person like Munshi should have felt the wound deeply. He has confessed that when he first read Brigg's Cities of Gujarat, the wound bled profusely and he gave expression to his distress in an article entitled Gujarat, the Grave of Vanished Empires which was published in the Baroda College magazine.
Later when he came to Bombay, Munshi studied all the available material about the sack of Somanatha and wrote two articles on the subject, which were published in the East and West, then a leading monthly of Bombay. Between 1915 and 1922, Munshi wrote his famous historical trilogy in Gujarati in which he resurrected the glories of Chalukyan Gujarat.
He felt that a nation which did not take pride in its past could have no future and it was his aim, through his novels, to recapture the glory and the grandeur that was Gujarat.
Author : Shri Kanaiyalal Maneklal Munshi
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