For us all Dwaraka is a great place known as
the capital city of Lord Krishna. It stands in the Gulf of Kutch in Gujarat on the
right bank of the Gomti river. Currently it is a town with a population of
40-45000. Lord Krishna settled at Dwaraka after he killed his uncle Kamsa at
Mathura. Krishna was supposed to have reclaimed 96 Sq. Km of land from the sea
to create Dwaraka.
The Dwarakadish Temple dedicated to Lord
Krishna was built in the year 200 BC at the earliest. An excavation was carried
out by the ASI for antiquity has yielded a settlement that is probably
contemporary to Mahabharata dated to around 2nd millennium BC.
Marine archaeological excavations of ASI date
the oldest submerged structural remains and artefacts found off the coast of
Dwaraka to around 1500-1800 BC which makes it roughly 3500-4000 years old. The
Mahabharata battle is dated to have taken place at about 1000 BC.
In 1473 the Sultan of Gujarat Mahmud Begada
sacked the town and destroyed the temple of Dwarakadish. They were later
rebuilt. When the Turk Aziz invaded Dwaraka, the idol was shifted to the island
of Bet Dwaraka. When the temples of Dwaraka and Bet Dwaraka suffered damage and
looted, in 1861 the Dwarakadish temple was renovated by Maharaja Khanderao and
the British.
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