Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/246

 202 KAZVINI'S PERSIAN ACCOUNT OF SOMNATH it was a chain of gold weighing two hundred mans. When a portion, or watch, of the night closed, this chain used to be shaken like bells to rouse a fresh lot of Brah- mans to perform worship. When Sultan Mahmud, the son of Sabuktagin, went THE SO-CALLED GATES OF SOMNATH. to wage religious war against India, he made great efforts to capture and destroy Somnath, in the hope that the Hindus would then become Mohammedans. He arrived there in the middle of Zu-1-ka'da, 416 A. H. (December, 1025 A. D.). The Indians made a desperate resistance. They kept going in to the temple weeping