Somnath stands first among the twelve — not because its legend is the grandest, but because tradition places it first in the Dwadasha Jyotirlinga Stotra, the verse by which pilgrims have recited the sequence for centuries. Its story begins not with Shiva at all, but with the Moon.
This is also the Jyotirlinga most shaped by history rather than myth alone: destroyed and rebuilt across centuries of invasion, it has become as much a symbol of endurance as of the original legend that gave it its name.
Chandra's Curse
Chandra, the Moon-god, married all twenty-seven daughters of the sage Daksha — the twenty-seven lunar constellations, the Nakshatras. But Chandra loved only one of them, Rohini, openly and without concealment, neglecting the rest.
Daksha warned him repeatedly to treat his wives equally. Chandra did not change. Daksha cursed him: his light would wane and eventually vanish entirely, night by night, until nothing remained.
The curse began to take hold immediately. As Chandra's light failed, the plants and herbs of the world — which drew their vitality from moonlight — began to wither. Fearing the death of the Moon would unravel the natural order itself, the Devas approached Chandra and urged him toward the one remedy still open to him: penance to Shiva.
Chandra's penance at Prabhas, on the shore where Somnath now stands
Shiva's Grace, Not a Cancelled Curse
Chandra came to Prabhas Patan, on the Gujarat coast, and undertook severe penance. Pleased, Shiva appeared before him — but did not undo Daksha's curse outright. A curse spoken by a sage of Daksha's standing could not simply be erased; it had to be honored even while its harshest consequence was softened.
Shiva's resolution was precise rather than absolute: Chandra would still wane, losing a portion of his light every day for a fortnight — but he would then wax again for the following fortnight, endlessly repeating, never fully extinguished and never permanently at fault. This is the traditional origin given for the waxing and waning lunar cycle itself, and for the two lunar fortnights, Shukla Paksha and Krishna Paksha, still named in Hindu calendars today.
In gratitude, Chandra built a temple at Prabhas to house Shiva in the form of a Jyotirlinga — a pillar of light — so that the god who had restored him would remain there permanently, radiant and self-manifest, at the very site of his own penance. Because Chandra is also called Soma, the temple and the Jyotirlinga took the name Somnath: "Lord of Soma," Lord of the Moon.
A Temple Rebuilt Across Centuries
Unlike most of the other eleven Jyotirlingas, Somnath's story does not end in the Puranic period. The temple at Prabhas Patan was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt across the medieval centuries, most famously following Mahmud of Ghazni's raid in 1025 CE, and reconstructed again several times afterward under various rulers and dynasties.
The present temple was rebuilt in the Chalukya style of temple architecture following India's independence, with the reconstruction effort led by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, and consecrated in 1951. For many pilgrims today, Somnath carries this second layer of significance alongside the Chandra legend — a site whose survival and repeated restoration have themselves become part of what the temple represents.
Versions of the Chandra-curse story appear across multiple Puranas with small variations — some accounts have Daksha cursing Chandra with consumption/wasting disease rather than a literal loss of light, with the waxing-waning explanation layered on by later tradition. The site's own methodology, consistent across this series, is to present the most widely repeated version while noting honestly where sources diverge, rather than presenting one telling as uniquely authoritative.
Today
Somnath remains an active pilgrimage site on India's western coast, drawing visitors both for its Jyotirlinga and for its coastal setting — the temple looks directly out over the Arabian Sea, with a sea-protection wall (the Bana Stambha) marking the point where, according to tradition, there is no land between the temple and Antarctica along that exact latitude.
Somnath opens The Twelve Jyotirlingas as it opens the traditional recitation order. Its story stands mostly independent of the site's other Puranic Stories series — a legend of the Moon-god's own household troubles rather than one that intersects directly with the Dashavatara, Saptarishi, or Avatars of Shiva material. That changes with several of the Jyotirlingas still to come, several of which sit much closer to figures and events already covered elsewhere on this site.
References & Further Reading
- Shiva Purana, Koti Rudra Samhita — Somnath Jyotirlinga account
- Skanda Purana, Prabhasa Khanda
- Traditional accounts of the Chandra-Daksha curse appear with variation across the Padma Purana and Bhagavata Purana as well