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The Development of Hindu Iconography c17.s2: Sūrya

The Development of Hindu Iconography c17.s2

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Sūrya

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Sūrya, the visible celestial luminary, was being worshipped in India from very early times. The Vedas refer to him and his various aspects as Savitṛ, Puṣan, Bhaga, Vivasvat, Mitra, Aryaman and Viṣṇu. Sūrya was the most concrete of the solar deities, and Savitṛ, ‘the stimulator of everything’ (sarvasya prasavitā-Nirukta, 10, 31) denoted his abstract qualities. Puṣan seems to have signified ‘the beneficent power of the sun manifested chiefly as a pastoral deity’. Bhaga’s association with the sun is not very clear, but according to Yāska, he is the presiding deity of the forenoon; the hymns also refer to him as ‘a distributor of wealth’. Vivasvat, perhaps originally representing the rising sun, was regarded by the hymnists as the first sacrificer, the ancestor of the human race; his Avestan counterpart, Vivanhant, was the first mortal that prepared Haoma (Vedic Soma). Mitra was an Indo-Iranian god, and it will be shown afterwards how the Iranian form of his cult reacted on north Indian sun-worship. Aryaman, also an Indo-Iranian deity, was a less defined aspect of Sūrya, and had very few individual traits. Viṣṇu was the most interesting of the solar deities, and the part he played in the development of the Bhāgavata creed has already been delineated in the first part of this chapter. Most of these deities, along with a few others like Amśa, Dakṣa, Mārtāṇḍa, etc., came to constitute, in different groupings and different contexts, the class of gods called Ādityas. Their number, indefinite in the early Vedic texts, was later fixed as twelve. The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa once enumerates them as eight including Mārtāṇḍa, but raises their number to twelve in two other passages, identifying them in this context with the twelve months. The epic and Purāṇic literature sticks to the number. Some texts name them as Dhātṛ, Mitra, Aryaman, Rudra, Varuṇa, Sūrya, Bhaga, Vivasvan, Puṣan, Savitā, Tvaṣṭā and Viṣṇu. The list of these names is, however, not uniform, though some of them are common in different texts. It should be noted that not only the names of the Vedic Ādityas are incorporated here, but those of the Vedic prototypes of the later Brahmanical triad, Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Śiva (Dhātā, Viṣṇu and Rudra) are also included in it. The worship of the twelve Ādityas along with that of the nine so-called planets or Navagrahas came to occupy a very important place in the religious life of the Indians. The Navagrahas are Ravi (Sun), Soma (Moon), Maṅgala (Mars), Budha (Mercury), Bṛhaspati (Jupiter), Śukra (Venus), Śani (Saturn), Rāhu and Ketu (the ascending and descending nodes of the moon); barring the first two and the last two, the rest are planets. The Navagrahas were worshipped by all in times of danger according to the grahayāga or svastyayana vidhi, for the troubles were regarded as originating from the anger of these gods. This is still the custom among the believing Hindus of India.

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Ṛgvedic hymns to Sūrya contain many epithets which had a hand in influencing many of his traits in the post-Vedic age. In some he is described as ‘the beautiful-winged celestial bird Garutmān’ (divya suparṇa Garutmān) while in one verse (R.V., VII, 77, 3) he is described as ‘a white brilliant steed brought by Uṣas’; from such descriptions originated the concept of Garuḍa, the mount of Viṣṇu, and Tārkṣya, the horse-mount of the Sun-god himself. Nay, the idea of the god riding on a chariot drawn by four or seven horses so frequently found in post-Vedic texts and illustrated in early reliefs has already been well formulated in Ṛgvedic hymns; he is more often described there as ‘moving on a car drawn by one, by several or by seven fleet and ruddy horses’ (I. 115, 3-4; VII. 60, 3; VII. 63, 2, etc.). The elaborate story current in the epics and the Purāṇas about Sūrya’s marriage with Viśvakarmā’s daughter Saṃjñā, her desertion of him after leaving with him her shadow (Chāyā) for her inability to bear his effulgence, Viśvakarmā’s attempt to reduce this in order that his daughter might endure it, had its origin in the Vedic myth about the marriage of Saraṇyu, the daughter of Tvaṣṭar, with Vivasvat, the Sun-god.¹

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¹ The Vedic myth seems to have started from a Brahmodya (a riddle or a charade) passage in the Ṛgveda (I. 164); for Bloomfield's observations on such Ṛgvedic passages, cf. J.A.O.S., Vol. 15, 1893, pp. 172-88.

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The worship of the Sun-god and his various aspects continued in the later Vedic period. In the post-Vedic age it was more advanced, and the two epics are full of allusions to Sūrya and his various aspects; one passage in the Mahābhārata (II. 50, 16) describes him as Deveśvara, ‘lord of gods’ (bhāsi divi deveśvaro yathā). Many other Sanskrit works of a general character belonging to the Gupta period and afterwards, also contain similar references. All these facts presuppose the existence of a school of sun-worshippers, known as the Sauras. They believed that the sun was the supreme soul, the creator of the universe; they cited textual authority in support of their belief both from the Śrutis and the Smṛtis (cf. the Ṛgveda passage : Sūrya ātmā jagatastasthūṣaśca, ‘the sun is the soul of movable and immovable things’, I. 115, 1). Six classes of sun-worshippers are mentioned by Ānandagiri who says that all of them bore nāmam (caste-mark) made of red sandal paste, wore garlands of red flowers and repeated the Sūrya gāyatrī of eight syllables. Mayūra-bhaṭṭa, a poet of the early mediaeval times, extolled the glory of the Sun-god in a poem consisting of one hundred verses, known by the name of Sūryaśataka, which was held in great esteem. The cult of the sun-worshippers seems to have had its adherents in north and south India in the early periods.

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From the early centuries of the Christian era the sun cult appears to have developed in Northern India along a certain well-marked line. That its north Indian form was much reorientated by the east Iranian mode of sun-worship is fully proved by many literary and archaeological data. The story of Sāmba’s leprosy and his cure from this fell disease by his worship of the Sun-god according to the approved east-Iranian (Śakadvīpī) manner is elaborately narrated in many Purāṇas such as Bhaviṣya, Varāha, Sāmba, etc.

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Reference is also made in many of these texts to his having caused to be built a big temple of the god at Mūlasthānapura (modern Multan in the West Punjab) on the banks of the Candrabhāgā. There was actually a big sun temple at Multan, a graphic description of which and the image enshrined there is given by foreign travellers like Hiuen Tsang and Arab geographers like Al Edrisi, Abu Ishak al Ishtakhri and others. Some of the Purāṇas also refer to the installation of a sun image known by the name of Sāmbaāditya by Sāmba at Mathura. The close association of the east Iranian form of sun-worship with the re-orientated cult of the god in Northern India is further emphasised in the Bṛhatsaṃhitā; it is expressly laid down there (Ch. 59, V. 19) that it was the Magas (the indianised form of the Magi, the sun-worshipping priests of Iran) who were entitled to instal ceremonially the images of Sūrya in temples. Alberuni knew this fact for he has recorded that the ancient Persian priests came to India and became known as Magas. Remains of the mediaeval temples of the Sun god are still extant in the extreme west (Modhera in Gujrat), the extreme east (Konarak in Orissa), and inscriptional references to the existences of such shrines of a far earlier period in several other parts of Northern India have been found.¹ That some of the ancient rulers of India were exclusive worshippers of the Sun god is also proved by epigraphic data; Mahārāja Dharapaṭṭa, one of the Maitrāka rulers of Valabhī, and some of the Puṣyabhūti rulers of Thāneśvwar like Rājyavardhana, Ādityavardhana and Prabhākaravardhana, were Param-Ādityabhaktas (‘the most devout worshippers of the sun’).

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¹ The Indor copper-plate Inscription of the time of Skandagupta refers to a temple of the Sun at Indrapura (old name of Indor in Bulandshahr District, U.P.); a still earlier temple of the god built by a guild of silk-weavers during the time of Skanda's father at Daśapura (old name of Mandasor in the Western Malwa division of Madhya Bharat) is referred to in the Mandasor stone Inscription of Kumāragupta I and Bandhuvarman. The Gwalior Stone Inscription of Mihirakula, the Huṇa chief, records the building of a sun temple at Gopādri (Gwalior hill) by one Mātṛcheṭa; the Deo-Baranark Inscription of the time of Jīvitagupta II (one of the later Gupta rulers of Magadha) also refers to an existing sun temple about 25 miles south-west of Arrah in the Shahabad district of Bihar (C.I.I., III, pp. 70, 80, 162, 218).

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There is little doubt that the particular form of sun-worship alluded to by the aforesaid archaeological data was the re-orientated sun cult described above. This form of cult does not seem to have been in vogue in the south, though sun images and temples of the mediaeval period have been found there; but it will be presently shown that mediaeval sun icons of the south differed much from their north Indian counterparts.

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Sun was being represented in Indian art by means of various symbols before the inception and development of any cult centering round him. These symbols were made use of by the Vedic ritualists in the performance of sacrifices. A wheel, a round golden plate, a lotus flower, etc., were commonly used on these occasions. It has already been demonstrated in Chapter IV that some of the earliest remains of India of the historic period, the punch-marked and cast coins, contain the representations of these objects. The coins of the Uddehika and the Pañcāla Mitra chiefs like Sūryamitra and Bhānumitra bear on their reverse side the solar disc placed on a pedestal. Sūrya in human form was not also very late in making his appearance in Indian art, though such figures of his are almost invariably associated with non-Brahmanical cults. The god is seen riding on a one-wheeled (ekacakra) chariot drawn by four horses on an ‘upright’ of the old stone railing (prācīnaśilāprākāra) at Bodh Gaya. He is attended on either side by a female figure shooting an arrow, and they are the earliest reliefs standing for Ūṣā and Pratyūṣā personifying the different aspects of ‘dawn’ driving away darkness; the demons of darkness appear to be personified by one male bust on each side of the relief. The Ṛgvedic description of Sūrya as riding a chariot drawn by one, three, four or seven horses seems to have been the basis of such representations. The Buddhist cave at Bhaja bears on the left side of its facade a royal figure who is shown riding in the company of two women in a chariot; its wheels pass over grossly proportioned nude demons seeming to float downwards in the air. Burgess identified the relief long ago as ‘Sūrya driving through the sky with his attendants and destroying the evil powers of darkness.¹ These two reliefs of the 1st century B.C. hailing from widely distant regions of India have some affinity with the 2nd century A.D. composition of Sūrya carved on one face of the many-sided column found at Lala Bhagat already partially described in Chapter III (supra, pp. 105-06). The Sun god rides here also on a four horse chariot with one wheel, the horses springing up, as it were, from the head of a demon (the demon of darkness? or it may be Rāhu); there is an umbrella with a long staff held aloft on one side of the head of the god by the female attendant on his left, the one on his right probably holding a cauri; two or three well-dressed female figures are shown below standing at ease over a group of uncouth nude dwarfs reminding us of the demons of the Bhaja relief (Pl. XXIX, Fig. 1; the malformed dwarfs have not come out in the plate). Reference may also be made in this connection to the Sūrya relief in the torus frieze of the small cave, Anantagumpha (c. 1st century A.D.) among the Khandagiri group of Jaina cave shrines near Bhuvanesvar in Orissa. Here also we find a more or less similar composition, and its affinity with the Lala Bhagat sun motif is specially marked in the presence by its side of the figures of the goddess Śrī and the disporting elephant also present in the latter (not shown in the plate). These early reliefs of Sūrya hailing from different corners of India, Western, Northern and Eastern, seem to prove that the iconography of this motif was to a great extent the same everywhere in these widely distant regions, and it was utilised by devotees irrespective of creeds. This motif was shortly to be remodelled in Northern India in a peculiar way due to the reorientation of the sun cult indicated above.

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¹ E. H. Johnston is of opinion that the scene illustrates the story of the war between Śakra and the Asuras as told in the Samyultanikāya; J.I.S.O.A., VII, 1939, pp. 1-7, pls. i and ii.

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Several extant art-motifs of the Gandhāra region, and especially those hailing from Mathura and belonging to the early centuries of the Christian era, help us to trace the development of the new and re-orientated Sūrya icons of the Gupta and post-Gupta periods. A small figure of Sūrya in black slate found in one of the sites of Gandhāra shows the god seated at ease on a chariot drawn by four horses; the sculpture being in an indifferent state of preservation many of the details are lost. But enough remains to show that the god wears boots, is attended by a female figure on either side (the one on the right is broken), and a bearded Atlantos crouches beneath the chariot reminding one of the ‘demons’ of the afore-said compositions (Pl. XXVIII, Fig. 3). The artist of Gandhāra seems to have been well informed about the earlier mode but he introduced some innovations in conformity with the local convention and with the needs of the transformed cult. The sculptors of Mathura, on the other hand, were turning out at about the same time from their atelier numbers of images of a peculiar character, some of which were undoubtedly of the Sun god.¹ One of the earliest such figures (No. D.46 in the Mathura Museum) shows the god sitting on his haunches inside a one-wheeled car drawn by four horses, holding probably a lotus bud in his right hand and a short sword in his left; he is dressed in heavy tunic, and there are traces of top-boots in his partially visible legs; he has the sun-disc or nimbus behind his head and a pair of short wings are attached to his shoulders. The wings distinctly emphasise the early Vedic concept of the sun-bird, and are seldom found attached to the figures of Sūrya; but there was no necessity for doing so in later art, for the sun-bird was transformed into Garuḍa, the bird-mount of Viṣṇu. This Mathura relief also ingeniously shows how at such an early date (1st or 2nd century A.D.) the indigenous and foreign elements were blended together in the evolution of the cult icon. Exhibit No. 894 of the same period in the Mathura Museum shows the Sun god holding a dagger and wearing boots, long coat and trousers, but without wings. Such motifs persisted up to the early or even late Gupta times in parts of Northern India; they were gradually Indianised and transformed into the approved varieties of the early and late mediaeval sun icons of the region.¹

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¹ Some of them may represent Sāmba, the traditional usherer of the east-Iranian sun cult in India, while others may stand for Kushan chiefs; cf. J.I.S.O.A., Vol. XIV, pp. 42-3, and XVI, p. 60.

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¹ Some of the foreign elements so prominent in such motifs of the early period have been commented on interestingly by V. S. Agrawala; *Handbook of the Sculptures in the Curzon Museum of Archaeology, Muttra*, p. 52.

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The extant Sūrya images of the early Gupta period, though not many in number, seldom fail to show most of the alien features already mentioned; but the gradual idealisation of these traits and preponderance of Indian elements had already begun from the Gupta period. The Niyamatpur and Kumarpur (Rajshahi, Bengal), as well as Bhumara (Nagod, Madhya Bharat) Sūrya reliefs bear a remarkable affinity to the Kushan Sūrya figures of Mathura as regards their dress and general characteristics; they are, however, all shown standing, and the chariot is absent. But the attendant figures of Daṇḍī and Piṅgala (also known by other names some of which like Srausha are foreign or rather Iranian) wearing alien dress and holding such objects as a long staff, a lotus, or a pen and inkpot are seldom absent, and the god usually holds two lotus blossoms by their stalks. One such cult icon of the early Gupta age, practically fully in the round, hailing from Mathura, shows a novel feature; it holds in its two hands the two ends of a flower garland decorating the middle part of the body. The main figure as well as the two attendants wear boots and a long coat, the one on the left being damaged; the horses and chariot are absent (Pl. XXIX, Fig. 3). The fine marble sculpture of Sūrya seated on a chariot the horses of which are being driven by Aruṇa shows the god attended by a bearded figure (the pen and inkpot bearing Kuṇḍī or Piṅgala of the Indian texts) on his right and one holding a long staff (Daṇḍī) on his left. This Gupta sculpture was found at Khair Khaneh (Afghanistan) and is now in the Kabul Museum (J.I.S.O.A., Vol. XVI, Pl. XIV, 2). The bluish basalt stone image of Sūrya found at Deora (Bogra), and now in the Rajshahi Museum shows further development of the iconic type. It is of the late Gupta period; so also is the Bhumara relief, but it contains far more elaborations than the latter. The number of attendants has increased, for besides Daṇḍī and Piṅgala, the charioteer Aruṇa driving the seven horses, the arrow-shooting goddesses Uṣā and Pratyūṣā (we have seen them in the Bodh Gaya relief) are present; the god wears a flat kirīṭa-mukuṭa and other ornaments, is clad in a dhoti tied round the waist by a girdle clasped in front; a short sword hangs by his left side. The boots on his legs are only partially visible, for much of the latter is inserted into the tri-ratha chariot pedestal as we find in the 8th century A.D. sun relief from Ellora; he has a circular halo round his head, and holds lotus-stalks with sprouting bunches of flowers in his two hands. The Kushan dress has no doubt disappeared, but the sacred thread on the body of the god, his consorts like Mahāśvetā, Rājñī, Nikṣubhā, Suvarcasā, etc., almost invariably present in such reliefs of the Pāla period, have not yet made their appearance. The Kashipur (24 Perganas, Bengal) Sūrya in the collection of the Asutosh Museum, Calcutta University, though similar to the Deora Sūrya in its general outline, and approximately of the same age, bears lesser details. Aruṇa and probably the arrow-shooting goddesses (broken away) are the only companions of the god; the one-wheeled chariot is clearly outlined, and the way in which the horses are treated and the two ‘demons of darkness’ are shown beneath the chariot reminds us of the earlier technique (Pl. XXVIII, Fig. 4).¹

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¹ For the Deora relief, cf. Dacca History of Bengal, Vol. I., pp. 456-57. A fine bronze or octo-alloy figure of Sūrya of the early mediaeval period found at Chauddagram (Tippera, Bengal) and now in the Dacca Museum, follows the Deora composition in many of its details, though the god is shown seated here; cf. N. K. Bhattasali, op. cit., p. 172 and pl. LIX.

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Before the developed iconography of a few more Sūrya reliefs of the mediaeval period is discussed, it is necessary to analyse some of the special traits of the earlier sun icons of Northern India on the basis, of relevant iconographic texts. One of the earliest descriptions of such Sūrya images is to be found in Chapter 57 of the Bṛhatsaṃhitā. The verses (46-8) specially enjoin that ‘the god should be dressed in the fashion of a Northerner, (his body) from the feet up to the breast being covered. He should wear a crown and hold two lotus flowers by their stalks. His face should be adorned with ear-rings, he should wear a long necklace and a viyanga ; . . . . . his face should be covered with a cheek plate.’ It should be noted that the text does not say anything about the chariot, the horses and other attendants of the god. The Viṣṇudharmottara of a later date containing fuller details, says that the god should have four arms; he should be covered with a coat of mail and he should wear a Northerner’s dress; his waist girdle is known as yāvīyāṅga (avyaṅga); the staff-carrying Daṇḍi is to be shown on his left, and the pen and inkpot (here palm leaf) bearing Kuṇḍi on his right; a lion standard is to be placed on Sūrya’s right side, and his four sons, Revanta, Yama, and the two Manus, should stand by him. Other attendants of the deity according to this elaborate description are his four wives, Rājñī, Ri- (Ni-) kṣubhā, Chāyā and the goddess Suvarcasā; the chariot drawn by seven horses should be driven by Aruṇa.’ This elaborate description of the sun image with his accessories may be profitably compared with similar descriptions given in north Indian and south Indian texts. The former group of texts usually lays stress on the close covering of the god’s body and his wearing the avyaṅga and the boots (upānat, some such late texts describe the sun as upānat-pinaddha pādayugalam), and there can be no doubt that writers of such texts emphasise in this way the foreign origin of this type of sun cult introduced into India in the beginning of the Christian era or even earlier. The udīyaveśa or the Northerner’s dress comprises the close covering of the body and the ‘boots’ of not only Sūrya himself but also of some of his male and female attendants. The avyaṅga is the Indianised form of Aiwiyaonghen, the sacred waist-girdle of the Iranians. It has been shown how the extant Sūrya reliefs of the Kushan, Gupta and late Gupta periods illustrate these iconographic features described in the texts.

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It has been assumed by some that the early north Indian Sūrya image had its prototype in the Iranian Mithra. But the ancient Iranians themselves did not represent the Sun god in human form in the earliest times, and like the ancient Indians used to represent him by means of such symbols as ‘a solar disc’, ‘a wheel’ etc. In one of the sepulchres of Darius near Naqsh-i-Rustam Mithra is represented as a round disc. In the later Mithraic monuments the human busts of sun and moon are to be found. But these could not have served as the proto-types of the north Indian Sūrya figures, though such busts made their appearance only at a time when Mithraism was thoroughly Hellenised in the courts of the west Asian successors of Alexander the Great. The fully anthropomorphic representation of Mithra in ancient art was due to this factor, and the types of Apollo-Helios, the Greek solar divinities, served as the original of the Iranian Sun god Mithra or Mihira. That the Hellenes of Asia Minor identified this form of Mithra with their own solar and planetary gods, is shown by a monument set up by Antiochus I of Commagne (69-38 B.C.); in the enormous cairn of the tumulus of Nimrud Dagh are five sculptures, one of which has the inscription, ‘Apollo-Mithras-Helios-Hermes’. Elaborate notice has been taken of the figures of Mihira-Helios on the coins of Kanishka and Huvishka in Chapter IV of this book, and there is little doubt that such forms were based on the representations of solar deities in the coins of the Indo-Greek rulers like, Apollodotus II, Philoxenus and Telephus.¹

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¹ The reverse device of a rare silver coin of Telephus shows the nimbate Sun god and the Moon god with a crescent on his head; they should be regarded as the prototypes of the Kushan Mihira and Mao. The Sun and Moon on Telephus's silver coin were also, for all practical purposes, the Iranian Mihira and Mao, for, in Greek mythology Salene, the Moon, is a goddess. The Sun god here must have been derived directly or indirectly from a still earlier representation of Apollo on some round and rare coins of Apollodotus; Apollo in these coins wears boots, as does the solar deity on the rare coins of Telephus; B.M.C., pl. XXXII, 7, pl. X, 5-9.

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The mediaeval Sūrya reliefs of Eastern India usually fall under two categories, one showing the god standing in the company of his attendants, the other showing him seated in *padmāsana*, the former outnumbering the latter. The first group again has more than one variety, some illustrative of the earlier tradition in which Daṇḍī, Piṅgala, Ūṣā, Pratyūṣā, Aruṇa and the seven horses are shown on the relief beside the lotus-carrying two-armed central figure of Sūrya dressed in *udīcyaveśa* (partially subdued in many of them). An early mediaeval Sūrya image from Khiching illustrated here (Pl. XXX, Fig. 2) is a fine specimen of this variety, and the Orissan artist deserves high praise for the excellent specimen of iconographic art chiselled out by him. This relief compares very favourably with the many elaborate standing Sūrya figures of Bengal and Bihar of the Pāla and Sena times in which the composition is overcrowded with accessory figures and other details. The latter are very often profusely ornamented, the stela (the back-slab, *prabhāvalī*) is usually pointed with the *kīrttimukha* design on its top centre, and the ‘companions’ (besides those mentioned above the others are his several queens, Rājñī, Nikṣubhā, Chāyā, Suvarccasā, the earth-goddess Mahāśvetā) of the main deity are arranged in several parallel layers by his side.¹ A comparison of another Khiching Sūrya relief, this time of the much rarer variety of seated Sun god, with a similar type of image from north Bengal (Bairhatta, Dinajpur), will also give more credit to the unknown artist of a corner of Orissa. The former depicts the two-armed Sun god, seated in *padmāsana* on a double-petalled lotus with his two hands holding full blossomed lotuses by their stalks; the god wears a conical crown, ear-rings, necklace and other ornaments; the *udīcyaveśa* is just faintly suggested by the artist; Aruṇa driving the seven horses is the only accessory motif in the relief (Pl. XXX, Fig. 3). The sweet expression of the face beautified by a faint smile and the excellent modelling of the whole composition endow it with a quality seldom found in such other reliefs of Eastern India. The Bairhatta inscribed sculpture of seated Sūrya on the other hand (c. 12th century A.D., the Khiching figure is at least a century or two earlier) is comparatively heavy and crude in its style and execution, and the whole composition is crowded with the seated male attendants (Daṇḍi and Piṅgala), the standing female companions of the god and the miniature figures of the eight other ‘grahas’, four on his either side; the pedestal inscription describes the god as ‘remover of all diseases’ (samasta-rogāṇām harttā).¹

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¹ For such elaborate Sūrya reliefs of Eastern India, *cf.* Dacca History of Bengal, Vol. I, Pl. XXX, Fig. 76; LXVIII, Fig. 166, etc.

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¹ Dacca History of Bengal, Vol. I, p. 456.

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The Western Indian images of Sūrya, though stylistically different from their Eastern Indian counterparts, resemble the latter in the broad outlines of their iconography.² One of the earliest extant Sūrya images of the South Indian variety belongs to the Paraśurāmeśvar Temple at Guḍimallam (near Renigunta in North Arcot). It stands bare-footed on a pedestal on which neither Aruṇa nor the seven horses are shown; the upper part of the body is left bare, and there are no attendants; the hands of the god raised to the level of the shoulders hold two lotus buds (the sculpture is of about the seventh century A.D.). Many other Sūrya figures of south India of a later period show almost similar iconographic traits, and Rao after a careful comparison of the Sun images of Northern and Southern India arrived at some generalisations.³ Rao’s observations are more or less correct, though there are exceptions which may prove the rule. The difference in the iconographic presentations of the Sun god in the two halves of India may probably be partially explained by the remark that whatever importance the Sun cult enjoined in the Pallava and later periods in south India was not due to the East Iranian form of Sun worship, and the cult itself was not much in vogue there.¹

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² J.I.S.O.A., Vol. XVI, pp. 84-5.

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³ Rao, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 311-12. Some of them can be enumerated thus: ‘The south Indian Sūryas have their hands raised to the level of their shoulders, and the lotuses held by them are only half-blossomed; their legs and feet are always left bare; the north Indian images have generally their hands at the general level of the hips or the elbows, and are made to carry full-blown lotuses rising up to the level of their shoulders, and they wear boots: Aruṇa and the seven horses, almost invariably present in north Indian varieties of Sūrya, are very often absent in their south Indian counterparts, and the number of attendants in the latter is very small (Daṇḍi, Kuṇḍi or Piṅgala, the arrow-shooting goddesses, the several consorts of the god, etc., are almost invariably absent, especially in the Tamil districts)’.

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¹ Though Ptolemy mentions the Maga Brahmanas (Magoi Brachmanoi) as residing in one corner of south India in the second century A.D., the East Iranian Sun cult does not seem to have made any headway there. Rao refers to the 11th century A.D. Sun temple at Suryanarkoil in the district of Tanjore, but there are very few such shrines in south India. The extant south Indian Sūrya reliefs mostly hail from shrines connected with other major cults like those of Śiva and Viṣṇu.

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Dvādaśādityas have been variously enumerated in different texts. The Viṣṇudharmottara does not name and describe them individually, but simply says that ‘the twelve Ādityas should be given the form of Sūrya’. Gopinath Rao summarises in a tabular form the description of the Dvādaśādityas as incorporated in the Viśvakarmaśāstra (op. cit., Vol. I, p. 310), but in his table all of them are shown as four-armed. The text quoted by him, however, explicitly says that two of them, Puṣan and Viṣṇu are to be shown as two-armed.² Separate images of these Ādityas are very rare; they are usually shown carved on the sides and top of the detached frames (most probably set up behind the image of the Sun god) or on the prabhāvalī of the Sūrya image. The architectural frame in the Junagadh Museum shows two-armed figures of Sūrya carrying lotuses in separate niches, three on either side and five on the top (eleven in all). Barring the central figure on the top, which is shown seated with Uṣā and Pratyuṣā on either side, all the other ten are shown standing and attended by other female companions. Four of the Navagrahas, probably Śukra and Śani and certainly Rāhu and Ketu, are also placed on the top. The eleven Ādityas together with the missing central figure of Sūrya would make up the requisite number.³

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² Puṣākhyasya bhavenmūrtirdvibhuja padmalāñcchitā l . . . . . Sudarśanakarā savye padmahastā tu vāmataḥ l Eṣā syād dvādaśī mūrtir Viṣṇoramitatejasaḥ ; Ibid, App. C, pp. 86-7.

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³ Rao, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 317, pl. XCV. H. D. Sankalia draws our attention to more or less similar motifs found in Western India; Architectural Antiquities of Northern Gujrat, pp. 158-59, Figs. 70 and 72.

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Rao is silent about the images of Revanta, probably because they are almost unknown in Southern India. Revanta is one of the sons of Sūrya, some of the others being Yama, the Aśvins, and Manus (the present and the future). The worship of this god seems to have been much in vogue in Eastern India.¹ The Kālikāpurāṇa describes his figure and says, that he should be worshipped either in an image, or a water-vessel, at the gates according to the rites of sun worship (Ch. V. 49). The worship of the god was also known at Gujrat, as proved by Sārṅgadeva's inscription from Vanthli (Ep. Indica, Vol. X, Luders List, No. 624). The Bṛhatsaṃhitā lays down that ‘Revanta riding on horse back is (shown) engaged with his companions in the sport of hunting’ (Ch. 57, V. 56); the Viṣṇudharmottara simply says that ‘the Lord Revanta should be like Sūrya, (and) on the back of a horse’ (Bk. III, Ch. 70, V. 53). The Ghatnagar (Dinajpur) black basalt image of this god (now in the collection of the Rajshahi Museum) presents him in a very interesting manner. The booted god rides on horseback holding a whip in his right hand and the reins in his left, with an attendant holding an umbrella over his head; two robbers are near him, one ready to attack him from the front, the other from a tree-top behind. The pedestal shows a woman standing, a devotee, a man with a sword and shield about to attack a woman cutting a fish with a fish-knife; on the right corner of the partially broken stele appears a dwelling house with a couple inside it (P. XXIX, Fig. 2). The Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa account of Revanta seems to throw some light on this genre scene in this manner: ‘Revanta, son of Sūrya and Saṃjñā, and the king of the Guhyakas, delivers people from the terrors of forests and other lonely places, of great conflagrations, of enemies and robbers and bestows upon his worshippers comfort, intelligence, happiness, kinship, perfect health, fame and exalted position' (Bibliotheca Edition, ch. 109, vv. 23-3). Some sections of the Ghatnagar relief seem to typify peaceful home life, while others, the perils of life. It may be noted, incidentally that the motif of ' a woman cutting a fish ' also occurs in the pedestal of the Hāritī image in the Dacca Museum.¹ In a very indifferently preserved image of this god recovered from an old tank at Badkamta (Tippera), and now in the Dacca Museum Collection, he is shown on horseback with a drinking vessel in his right hand, accompanied by musicians and other male and female attendants, and even retriever dogs. Mṛgayā (hunting) is a royal sport (vyasana) in which revelries were a common feature. Several sculptures exactly similar to the Badkamta relief hailing from Bihar and now in the collection of the Indian Museum, Calcutta, were at first wrongly identified as Kalkī, the future incarnation of Viṣṇu, but their correct identity was suggested by B. B. Bidyabinod (J.A.S.B., 1909, pp. 391-92, Pl. XXX).

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¹ Raghunandana, the great Smārta writer of Bengal, quotes a passage from Kalpataru (which borrows it from Brahmapurāṇa), which records the ceremonial worship of Revanta (Pujyaḥ śaśvaiśca Revanto yathāvibhavavistaraiḥ); Tithitattva, p. 690.

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¹ N. B. Sanyal was the first to study correctly this relief in his article; I.H.O., Vol. III, 1927, pp. 469-72 and plate.

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The worship of the Navagrahas was and is still much in vogue in different parts of India, especially Eastern India. The Yājñavalkyasūtra (Bombay edition, 1892, p. 89) lays down that the grahayajña should be performed by one who desired peace and prosperity, ample rains (for his crops), long life and nourishment, and (by him) who wants to harm his enemies; the figures of Sūrya, Soma (moon), the son of the Earth (Maṅgala, Mars), the son of Soma (Budha, Mercury), Bṛhaspati (Jupiter), Śukra (Venus), Śani (Saturn), Rāhu and Ketu should be made of copper, crystal, red sandal (wood), gold (in the case of Budha and Bṛhaspati), silver, iron, lead and bell-metal respectively; or these figures should be drawn on canvas in their respective colours, or in maṇḍalas made of scented paste (sandal wood paste—these are of the lepajā variety as noticed in Chapter VI of this book). This text as well as many other texts like Viṣṇudharmottara, Agnipurāṇa, Aṃśumad-bhedāgama, Śilparatna describe their forms in different manner, and the extant Navagraha reliefs containing their separate and group representations often depict them in different manner. Stone slabs with the figures of these ‘grahas’, usually standing and rarely seated, were used as architectural pieces in mediaeval temples of different parts of India. This mediaeval convention did undoubtedly serve as a prophylactic measure for the safety of the temples. A late Gupta fragmentary sandstone relief from Sarnath (now exhibit No.

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1536 in the Indian Museum) contains the figures of four ‘planets’, Bṛhaspati, Śukra, Śani and Rāhu. All are two-armed, the first three standing in graceful poses, while the fierce-looking Rāhu is shown only up to the breast with a grinning face, round protruding eyes, hair tied up in a bunch of spiral coils rising upwards (*piṅgalordhakeśa*). Bṛhaspati, Śukra and Śani have each a halo behind his head, and a rosary in his right hand, while the left hands of the first two hold a water-pot, Śani’s left hand being broken; Ketu is not shown in it, as Rāhu whose hands are in the *tarpaṇa mudrā*, occupies the (extreme) end of the carved slab (Pl. XXXI, Fig. 1). Thus, the slab seems to have contained the figures of eight ‘grahas’ only (the figures of the first four being broken away), and this seems to have been the earlier convention in architectural use of these ‘planets’, Ketu being a later addition. This observation is borne out by the evidence of the Śiva temples of Bhuvanesvar (Orissa). The lintel slabs of all the earlier such shrines of the Bhauma-Kara period there contain only the figures of eight ‘grahas’, Ketu making his appearance on the architraves from the Gaṅga period onwards.¹ In some of the later such slabs (specially hailing from Bengal), the group representation begins with the figure of Gaṇapati. This is proved by a very fine sculpture found at Kankandighi (Twenty-four Perganas, Bengal;

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it is now in the Asutosh Museum, University of Calcutta), which shows the nine ‘Planets’ standing in graceful pose on lotus pedestals, holding their respective attributes in their hands, with Gaṇeśa in the beginning; Bṛhaspati alone is shown with a beard, their respective cognizances being carved below the long double-petalled lotus. The beautifully designed long rectangular slab with the main figures inset in very high relief, appears to prove that the composition was an object for regular worship in times of *grahayāga*, and not a ‘door-piece’ (Pl. XXXI, Fig. 2). A unique mode of representing the ‘grahas’ is found in the twelve-spoked wheel, the Navagraha-cakra, found among the ruins of Khiching. The twelve-spoked wheel rests on its side on a lotus pedestal; inside the broad rim are arranged the figure of the nine ‘Planets’, Sūrya seated in the top centre, Rāhu and Ketu on either side in the bottom, on the sides are carved one above the other the six other ‘grahas’, three on either side; in the centre of the wheel is a three-faced (?) four-armed figure seated in *padmāsana* with its front hands in the *dhyānamudrā*, the objects in the back hands being indistinct (it may stand for Brahmā, *i.e.*, Dhātā or Vidhātā); flames issue from the rim of the wheel (Pl. XXX, Fig. 1). This sculpture also seems to have been a regular object of worship like the Kankandighi relief.

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¹ K. C. Panigrahi first drew my attention to this feature of the Bhuvanesvar temples. Another point of interest connected with the Orissan ‘Navagraha’ slabs is that in the earlier ones Bṛhaspati and Śukra are shown beardless (as in the Sarnath relief), but in later ones they are almost invariably bearded.

Cites (21)