The sun was worshipped as Ra by the ancient Egyptians, as Helios by ancient Greeks and as Mithra by the ancient Persians. In India the Sun god was known by various names like Surya, Aditya, Savitr, Bhaskara, Arka, Ravi, Prabhakara, Martanda, Bhanu, Divakara, etc. The Sun god was worshipped as a giver of life and heat, creator of night and day and the god of vegetation and fertility.
In the Vedic texts, the sun god Surya is looked upon as one of the greatest deities delivering man from trouble and dishonour, guilt and disease and in the Rigveda there are at least ten hymns invoking the Sun god. The Gayatri mantra addressed to Savitr, another name for the Sun god, is found in the third mandala of the Rigveda and composed by a rishi belonging to the Vishwamitra family.
Originally the Sun god was worshipped by chanting Vedic hymns and he was represented in symbolic forms like the wheel, swastika, gold-disc, lotus, etc. In due course when images were carved for him, he was worshipped by the offerings of flowers, Arghya (water libation), scents and other articles. Probably by the end of Mauryan age, the sun image came into existence and the worship of the image of sun god started.
According to Sudhakar Chattopadhyaya, with the rise of Vaishnavism, the sun god gradually began to lose much of his importance as Vishnu, originally a solar deity absorbed in himself much of the elements that had been attributed to Surya. However the arrival of the Magas and their introduction of sun worship in the form of Mithra, led to the revival of the sun cult during the 1st century A.D.,especially in the north-western parts of India.
Indigenous and foreign sun cult
The earliest reference to the Saura sect (as the followers of the sun god were known) is to be found in the accounts of the classical writers who refer to the Indians as worshipping Soroadeios or the Suryadeva. Philostratos states that there was a temple of the sun at Taxila during the time of Alexander’s invasion. Varahamihira instructs that installation and consecration of the images and temples of the Sun should be made by the Magas who are regarded by the Indians as the Brahmanas or the priestly class of the Shaka community. This leads us naturally to the question – had the Shakas or the Scythians to do anything with the system of the solar cult prevalent in the western Punjab in the 4th century B.C. because it is generally believed that the Shakas came and settled in India in the 1st century B.C. According to V.C.Srivastava the first batch of the Magas may had entered India in the 5th century B.C. in the wake of the Achaemenid invasion. According to J.Przyluski a branch of the Shakas probably had entered India and settled in western Punjab as early as the 5th century B.C. and hence we find the presence of the Magian solar symbol on the coins of the Indo-Greek kings who ruled before the coming of the Shakas in India. Sudhakar Chattopadhyaya opines that the arrival of the Shakas into India during the 1st century B.C. was a second wave of immigration.
Hence in the pre Christian epoch there were two distinct Saura sects, one Indian having the Vedic deity Surya as its supreme god and the other foreign with its own Sun god, Mithra wearing the characteristically foreign dress. The Mithra form of sun worship was introduced into India by the Magians (priestly class of the Shakas) who came to India and the foreign sect was mainly confined to the western Punjab region. The Shakas had imbibed strong Iranian elements in their culture before they entered into India.
Worship of sun god in image form
The earliest representation of sun god in human form is found on a pottery piece of the Mauryan period from Patna in which the deity is standing with Aruna on a four horse chariot. A Shunga terracotta from Chandraketugarh shows the deity flanked by two females and riding on a toy cart drawn by four horses. Similar images of the sun god are also found at Bodh Gaya, Bhaja, and Anantagumpha cave in Khandagiri hill in Odisha. They may be regarded as precursors of the sun images of the first period (from 2nd - 1st century B.C. to 2nd century A.D.) when there is absence of Iranian features in the sun icon.
From about the 1st or the 2nd century A.D., the Magian sun priests began to settle down in large numbers in different parts of north India and due to their increasing influence, some distinctly foreign traits came to be associated with the north Indian sun image. Of these were the practices of covering the legs of the images up to the knees with leggings or top-boots and encircling the waist of the images with the ‘Avyanga’, an adoption of the Iranian sacred thread ‘Aiwyaongana’. Many images from the Gandhara and Mathura regions of the Kushana and the post Kushana period demonstrate these features, which was a blending of the Hellenistic, Indian and Iranian traditions.
However south Indian images excluded the above foreign features. Here the legs and feet of Surya images are always left bare and not covered with leggings. Instead of the long coat of northern India, we find an udarbandha in them. The Anshumadbedaagama emphasizes the fact that the garments of the sun god should be red in colour and he should stand on a lotus pedestal (Padmapitha) and encircled with halo (Prabhamandala).
Adityas and Navagrahas
The Adityas and Navagrahas are worshipped as component parts of the solar religion.
Adityas, the solar divinities
In the Rigveda, Surya, Savitr, Pusan, Vishnu, Mitra, Varuna and other gods are jointly invoked under the name of Adityas and called the sons of Aditi. Their number which was around six and seven was increased to twelve during the time of epics and Puranas by including other gods like Dhatr, Bhaga, Aryaman, Rudra, Vivasvat and Tvastr. Regarding the origin of Adityas it has been narrated that the gods called Tusitas of the Chakshusha Manvantara came to be known as Adityas in the Vaivasvata Manvantara. These twelve divinities were identified with the months of the solar year and were invoked for happiness, riches, food and descendants.
The Navagrahas
The tradition of worshipping Surya in association with Navagrahas was a later development as rules for the performance of the grahayaga are laid down in the Puranas. Probably this development may have taken place when by around 12th century A.D., Surya lost his importance as a deity and was reduced to the position of a planet (Graha). Navagrahas were worshipped to avoid inauspicious happenings in religious performances and grahayaga performed for peace, prosperity and a long life. The figures of Navagrahas namely- Surya, Soma (Moon), Mangala (Mars), Budha (Mercury), Brhaspati (Jupiter), Shukra (Venus), Shani (Saturn), Rahu and Ketu are usually found in a panel on a door frame of the shrine, on the entrance doorway and sometimes on the torana of a Surya temple. Slabs carved with Navagrahas were also used for regular Navagraha worship. In south India we can find Navagrahas with images of the sun and other planets engraved on stone slabs installed within the enclosed verandah round the central shrine of a temple. The sun stands in the centre and the others are fixed round him. The only temple thus far known to be dedicated to the sun and its attendant planets exclusively is the one at Suriyanar Koyil in the Tanjore district in Tamilnadu.
Fusion of Vedic and Iranian traditions
Over a period of time the national (Vedic) and Iranian tradition of sun worship were merged together. This is best illustrated by the story of Samba as represented in the later Puranas. The Varaha Purana, the Bhavishya Purana and the Samba Purana tells us that Samba (Sri Krishna’s son) who after being afflicted with leprosy, recovered through the grace of the sun worshipped in the Shakadvipa (eastern Iran). It further states that Samba, constructed a big temple on the banks of river Chandrabhaga at Mulasthana (Multan). As the Indian priests refused to officiate there consequently Samba imported the Magas from the Shakadvipa and they did the necessary worship. This fusion of the two solar sects is marked in the famous Aditya hrudayam hymn occurring in the Bhavishya Purana which is studied with respect by all sun worshippers of the present day.
(The sun temple at Multan was visited by Hiuen Tsang in the 7th century A.D. and during that time it was a great centre of Sun worship. He writes that the image of the Sun god was cast in yellow gold and ornamented with rare gems. When the Arabs conquered Multan, they broke the idol into pieces and killed its priests. Hence when Alberuni visited the temple, he found the image of the Sun god made of wood and covered with leather ).
Sauras, the followers of the sun cult
The Mahabharata for the first time refers to the sect of sun worshippers who are called as Sauras. Anandagiri in his work Shankaravijaya, says that Sri Shankarcharya came into contact with the followers of the Saura sect at a place Subrahmanya in south India. They wore a circular spot of red sandal on their forehead and bore red flowers. They considered the sun as the Supreme Soul and the author of the world. There were six divisions among the Sauras. The first group worshipped the rising sun, the second, the mid-day sun, the third, the setting sun. The fourth venerated all these aspects of the sun while the fifth used to vow that they would not eat anything until they see the orb of the sun and offer worship to it. The devotees of the sixth class used to imprint the orb of the sun on their forehead, arms and chest with a heated iron piece and used to meditate on the sun continuously.
The sacred day for the sun worshippers was Sunday and the popular festival of the sun god was Rathayatra, wherein the image of the sun god seated on a chariot was taken in a procession. The Bhavishya Purana mentions about 42 different types of vratas performed by the followers of the sun god.
Growing popularity of the sun worship
The popularity of the sun cult during the rule of the Indo Greeks, Shakas and the Kushanas can be gauged by the large number of coins having the figures of the sun god issued by these rulers. The Mandasore inscription of Kumara Gupta mentions that the silk weavers guild built a sun temple at Dasapura. These silk weavers had migrated from Lata in Gujarat which shows that the Magian sun cult which was prevalent in western India in the Scytho-Kushana age had extended into the Madhya Bharat region by the time of the Guptas. The Shakas who introduced the Iranian sun cult in eastern India had been thoroughly Indianized by the time of the Guptas and their cult found a place in the Hindu religion.
From 6th century A.D. onwards we have evidence of many kings in Saurashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan being devote worshippers of the sun god. So also rulers like the Vardhanas, Chauhans, Paramaras, Gurjara Pratiharas, Kalachuris and Eastern Gangas were followers of the sun cult. The Maliya copper plate inscription (571 – 72 A.D.) informs us that Maharaja Dharapatta of the Maitraka dynasty was a Paramadityabhakta. The rulers of Vardhana dynasty of Thaneshwar like Prabhakaravardhana, Adityavardhana and Rajyavardhana were followers of the sun-cult. The Sonepat copper seal inscription refers to them as Paramadityabhaktas. Poet Mayura Bhatta, a contemporary of king Harshavardhana wrote, Suryashataka praising the sun as the supreme god. The Pratihara kings, Ramabhadra and Vinayakapala are also described in many inscriptions as Paramadityabhakta.
The fact that Surya was one of the deities (others being Shiva, Vishnu, Devi and Ganesha) in the Panchayatana puja instituted by Sri Shankaracharya and also one among the six gods (Shiva, Vishnu, Ganesha, Kumara and Devi) popularized by Sri Shankaracharya for the collective worship by Hindus shows the popularity of the sun cult during the time of Sri Shankaracharya (8th century A.D.)
Magadha (south Bihar) was one of the favorite place of the descendants of the ancient Magas and the importance of Magadha in the history of solar cult is very much evident from the astounding abundance of sun temples and images scattered profusely all over this region though now in a dilapidated condition. Most of the sun images and temples of this area were built during the Pala-Sena period (730 A.D. - 1197 A.D.) The rulers of these dynasties were worshippers of the sun god and kings like Vishvarupasena and Keshavasena of the Sena dynasty are referred to as Parama Saura. Even to this day worship of sun god is still strong in this region with the festival of Chhath celebrated with fervour and devotion. Thus during the period 700 A.D. to 1300 A.D., the sun cult was one of the most important cults in northern India.
Famous sun temples
About 141 sun temples in India have been listed by Lalta Prasad Pandey. Some of the famous extant sun temples in India are at Martanda in Kashmir erected by Lalitaditya in about the middle of 8th century A.D., at Modhera in Gujarat dated 11th century A.D. and at Konark in Odisha dated 13th century A.D. by the Eastern Ganga ruler Narasimha I.
Apart from seperate temples dedicated to Surya, he was also included in the Hindu Panchayatana system. Panchayatana is the worship of five gods, Vishnu, Shiva, Surya, Ganesha and Devi in one single temple complex with one of the gods having a shrine in the centre and others in the subsidiary quarters. In the Surya Panchayatana, small temples dedicated to Vishnu, Shiva, Ganesha and Devi are erected in the subsidiary quarters, with Surya temple in the centre.
After 13th century A.D., the worship of Vishnu, Shiva and Shakti became popular, Surya lost his importance as a deity and was reduced to the position of a planet (Graha). The Shaivas particularly the Pashupatas were opposed to the solar cult and checked their progress. While some sun temples were destroyed, others were either deserted or converted into the abode of other gods. However sun worship continues even today both at the mass and class level. While at the mass (folk) level it takes place in the festival called Chhath (celebrated in great fervour especially in parts of eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand, six days after the festival of Deepavali), at the class level it takes place in the form of recitation of Gayatri mantra, daily by members of the Brahmin community.
Reference
V.C.Srivastava – The Puranic Records on the Sun Worship, Purana, vol – XI, No.2, July 1969
V.C.Srivastava – Sun Worship in Ancient India, Indological Publications, Allahabad, 1972
Lalta Prasad Pandey – Sun Worship in Ancient India, Motilal Banarsidass, 1971
R.S.Gupte – Iconography of the Hindus, Buddhists and Jains, D.B.Taraporevala Sons & Co. Pvt Ltd, Bombay, 1972
H.Krishna Sastri - South Indian Images of Gods and Goddesses, Madras, Government Press, 1916
Sudhakar Chattopadhyaya – Theistic Sects in Ancient India, Progressive Publishers, Calcutta, 1962
K.S.Singh – Solar Traditions in Tribal and Folk cultures of India, India International Centre Quarterly, vol – 19, No. 4, 1992
Amar Jiva Lochan – Ancient Sun temples in Gaya region: with special reference to some rare and unrecorded images of sun god, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, vol – 42, 1981
J.N.Banerjea – Pauranic and Tantric religion, University of Calcutta, 1966
J.N.Farquhar – An Outline of the Religious Literature of India, Oxford University Press, 1920
Dilip Kumar Biswas – The Origin and Antiquity of the Surya image in India, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, vol – 16, 1953
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