Henry George Keene (1826–1915)

"Indian annals for the next century were to be written in blood. During a reign of thirty years Mahmud the Iconoclast invaded India no less than twelve times, causing carnage wherever he was resisted, desecrating the Hindu temples and destroying their idols. Mathura, in the centre ; Kanauj, in the east ; Somnath, the gloomy shrine of Siva, on the coast of Kathia war; in such distant and divergent spots he smote the Rajput ; Mathura, or " Muttra," was sacked in 1017, Kanauj in the following year. Somnath, which was under the sovereignty of the Chalukya House of Kalian, was captured after an assault of three days' duration. This was in 1025, when the great statue of Mahadeo is said to have been destroyed, and the doors of his temple carried away to fill the gateway where the conqueror was to be entombed."