1838.] Note on Somndth.. 883 



Note on Somndth. 



History has given to the idol and temple of Somndth a celebrity that 

 none other of the places of Hindu worship can boast. The romantic- 

 account of its destruction given by Ferishta, is the circumstance by 

 which to this day Mahmud Ghaznavi's career of victory and blood- 

 shed is most remembered — so much so that even Mill has condescend- 

 ed to borrow from that historian, the picturesque story of the image 

 yielding to successive blows of- the warrior king's battle-axe, till his 

 zeal was repaid by the bursting of the idol's belly, and the discovery 

 of the largest and most valuable jewels concealed within its cavity. 

 The Rozut oos-sufa, a history of higher antiquity* and better autho- 

 rity than Ferishta, gives an account of Mahmud's expedition, which 

 corresponds in the main particulars with that of Ferishta, but omits 

 this breaking of the image ; nevertheless, as Ferishta says the pieces 

 were to be seen in his day at Ghaznavi, there can be no doubt the 

 image was broken, and carried away as a trophy of the conquest. 



The account of the idol and temple given by Ferishta is evidently 

 borrowed from the Rozut oos-sufa, of which the citation of Sheikh 

 Fureed ood deen's couplet in explanation of the name Somndth, is un- 

 deniable evidence. As this work may not be in every body's hands, it 

 may be useful to insert an extract rendered into English, for comparison 

 with the account of the same events which will be found in the 

 first volume of Colonel Briggs's Ferishta. The place beseiged by 

 Mahmud Ghaznavi must have been the city of Pdtan, the situa- 

 tion of which on the sea side, as described by Lieut. Postans, exactly 

 corresponds with the description in both histories, though the name of 

 the town was lost in the greater celebrity of the idol and its temple. 



" Somndth is the name for an idol which, according to the Hindus, 

 was lord of all idols. But Sheikh Fureed ood deen Utar, the poet, 

 says, Somndth is the name of a place, and Lat the name of the idol, for 

 he has the following couplet : 



" Historians however agree that Somndth was an idol in a temple 

 situated on the sea side, which idol the Hindus worshipped, especially at 

 times of eclipse. More than a lakh of people used to come to it on nights 

 when the moon was under eclipse : and they believed too, that the 

 souls of the deceased came to Somndth, on first leaving the bodies 

 they had occupied, and were there assigned to fresh bodies. They 

 also believed that the sea worshipped Somndth, and the rise and fall 



* The Rozut oos-sufa was compiled by order of Ameer Ulee Sheer, between 

 the Hijira years 900 and 902, A D. 1444 and 1496. 



