Surya
The Sun worshipped as a god, and the first of the nine grahas.Surya is the Sun worshipped as a god: hymned in the Rigveda, counted first among the nine grahas, one of the five deities of the Smarta household altar, and the deity of Konark. A distinct Saura tradition once had a canon of its own, eighty-five titles listed in a text that is itself lost, and not one of the eighty-five has surfaced.
A quick reference entry. For the full account, follow the guides below.
Guides and journal
- The Navagraha: The Nine Planetary Powers Deities
The two lights: Surya and Chandra Two of the nine are not like the others.
- Eighty-five titles and no text: the Saura tantras and how a tradition disappears Lineages
Jürgen Hanneder, who published the transcript, summarises the section as the division of the canon of tantras taught by Surya.
- Konark: The Sun Temple Temples
A king and a date The temple was raised in honour of Surya, the sun god, as its presiding deity, and by a king who wanted to honour him at a scale nobody had attempted before.
- Surya Namaskar: The Sun Salutation Yoga
What they are doing is the Surya Namaskar, the Sun Salutation, and it is one of the most performed sequences of movement on the planet.
- Why do so many temples face east? Temples
Surya is the visible deity, the giver of light and life and time, greeted at dawn with water and mantra long before there were temples to house other gods.
- The Gayatri Treatise
The Gayatri mantra is Rigveda 3.62.10, a verse to Savitr, the Impeller, the power in the sun rather than the sun-disc ascribed to the seer Vishvamitra, in the…
- The Turning Toward Light Treatise
Makar Sankranti, around January 14, marks the sun's entry into the sidereal sign of Capricorn and the start of uttarayana, the sun's northward course. It is one of…