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| SURYA RIDING
HIS CHARIOT |
CHHANDOGYA Upanishad says that at
the time of creation the world's egg divided itself into
two parts, the one of silver and the other of gold. The
silver part became the earth, the golden part the sky .The
outer cover of the egg became the mountains; the inner
cover the clouds and snow; the inside veins became the
rivers and the liquid in the egg became the ocean. When
the sun appeared there was a great cry from which all the
beings and all their pleasures were born. Hence at his
rising and setting, cries and songs are heard; all beings
and desires rise toward it. Those who worship the sun as
the Absolute ever hear beautiful sounds and are filled
with joy.
The well-known horses of SURYA are mentioned in Rig Veda,
which says, "May SURYA with its seven horses arrive". The
sun sits on a lotus in his chariot of seven golden mares.
Sometimes the chariot has only one horse with seven heads
surrounded with rays. Surya's charioteer is ARUNA (the red
one), who is the wise elder brother of GARUDAA, the
vehicle of VISHNU, and is also the deity of dawn. He
stands on the chariot in front of the Sun, and his strong
and vast body shelters the world from Surya's fury.
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| SURYA WITH
ARUNA - THE CHARIOTEER |
Procreator (SAVITAR), Lord-of-the-Day (AHARPATI),
Eye-of-the-World (JAGAT CHAKSHU), Witness-of Deeds (KARMA
SAKSHIN) or Lord-of-Seven Horses (SAPTASHVA) is the
various names by which SURYA is worshipped.
Though small images or visual representations of this god
can be seen in bit temples of other gods, SURYA has only
one full-fledged temple dedicated to it. It is
the famous temple of Sun god at
KONARK in Orissa. The structural peculiarity of
this shrine is that it is built mainly of blocks of
laterite without the use of mortar. The blocks are all
held together by a system of poise and balance - a
masterpiece of the science of architecture. In this temple
the weight of one stone acts against the pressure of
another, much of the stability being a matter of balance
and equilibrium. The temple was built in the thirteenth
century A.D. but seems to have been later abandoned for
some unknown reasons.
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