Priest claims having fragments of Somnath Temple's ancient Shivling, seeks re-installation - World News Network

Somnath (Gujarat) [India], February 11 (ANI): A priest, Sitaram Shastry, has claimed that he has been the custodian of the broken fragments from the ancient Shivling of Gujarat’s Somnath temple, which was demolished by Mahmud of Ghazni in 11th century.
In a self-made video, Sitaram Shastry, a priest from the lineage of saints has claimed that he has been preserving the pieces of the sacred Lingam from last 21 years and now that he wants it to get consecrated at the Somnath Temple.
For this purpose, he has met spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar who has voiced support to him in this resolution.
Shastry said, “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 Somnath temple in Gujarat. This is the real statue of Somnath. It’s been 1000 years… My uncle ordered me to instal it in Somnath Ji. It was given to my uncle by his guru Pranavendra Saraswati Ji. After that, my uncle worshiped it for 60 years. This statue has come to me, him and his guru with ‘Guru-Pratha’ only.”
“A thousand years ago, this Shiva Lingam, that was 3 ft fall and was remained suspended 2 feet from the floor, defying gravity. There were multiple attacks by invaders to destroy this Shiva Lingam. The temple was looted too. Invader Mahmud of Ghazni killed almost 50,000 people to enter the Somnath temple. He looted all the precious things that was adorned in the temple and destroyed the Shiva Lingam,” he added.
The priest said that soon after Mahmud of Ghazni destroyed the sacred Shiv Lingam, various saints collected the broken fragments, made several statues from it and kept worshipping it for years. He said that the saints have consensually decided to re-install them in the temple when the right time will arrive.
Shastry said, “After this incident, various saints came and collected the broken fragments, made several statues from it and started worshipping them. They consensually decided that statues made from these fragmented pieces would be installed in the temple again when the right time will arrive. From that time, these statues came to Guru Pranavendra Saraswati, my uncle and me from ‘Guru Pratha’. From the last 60 years, my uncle is worshipping it. Before taking Samadhi, he called me, gave these statues and ordered me to install at least two of them in Somnath, Gujarat….”
Sitaram Shastry shared that he met various saints in the regard to re-install 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 Samandhi. After that, I took these to Vijendra Saraswati Ji and he was happy to see this. He told 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.
He added, “Guru Sri Sri Ravishankar has assured that it would be installed in Somnath temple. I am happy. My birth would be successful. The real Somnath Shivling would be installed in the Somnath temple, this is our resolution.” (ANI)

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