The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c11.142

Language: English

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**Heliolatry:** The earliest god of the Aryans was the great luminary of the day, the manifest symbol of the unmanifest Divinity, who creates and sustains the universe. What his first name exactly *was*, we know not; but there is little doubt that it was formed of a root like *sur* or *sar* or *sṛ* whence the Greek *helios* and the Latin *sol* by the regular mutation of the *s* and *r*, and Sūrya was one of his earliest names according to the *Ṛgveda Saṃhitā*. How Sūrya changed into Viṣṇu has already been shown, and as Viṣṇu rose to importance, Sūrya *alias* Āditya fell back, till in the time of the Purāṇas he was relegated to a very subordinate position, and the bulk of his worhsippers ranged themselves in the ranks of the followers of Viṣṇu, Śiva and Śakti. A few only remained faithful to him, and continued to adore him for their salvation, and these were known by the name of Saura or the worshippers of Sūrya, who, according to the Purāṇas, formed one of the five leading sects of the Hindus, viz., the Vaisṇavas, the Śaivas, the Śāktas, the Sauras and the Gāṇapatyas. Their number, however daily contracted, and at the beginning of the twelfth century, Halāyudha, in his *Brāhmaṇa Sarvasva*, or the circle of the duties of Brāhmaṇas, but barely mentioned them without giving any details about the initiation of neophytes into that sect;

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the sect being so insignificant as not to render it worth while to devote to it even a small section in a large work professing to treat of the entire subject of the religious duties of the Brāhmaṇas. Raghunandana, who wrote three hundred and sixty years ago, is equally brief, noticing the sect but casually, without entering into any detail. In the present day, no Saura is to be met with in all Bengal or Orissa, and only a few are said to exist in the North-Western Provinces, and they number, perhaps, one in a hundred thousand of the people. Adverting to them, Wilson says, “There are a few of them, but very few, and they scarcely differ from the rest of the Hindus in their general observances. The *Tilaka*, or frontal mark, is made in a peculiar manner, with read sandal, and [ 158 ] the necklace should be of crystal : these are their chief peculiarities besides which, they eat one meal without salt on every Sunday, and each *Saṅkrānti* or the sun's entrance into a sign of the zodiac : they cannot eat either until they have beheld the sun, so that it is fortunate that they inhabit his native regions.” ⁶⁸ Of course, every Brāhmaṇa worship the sun daily at his *Sandhyā*, and no good Hindu performs a religious rite in which the sun does not obtain his share of *mantras* or offerings; but that is quite distinct from initiation into the *mantra* of the sun, and the acceptance of that divinity as the god elect for one’s salvation.

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In this latter sense, the worship of the sun has all but completely ceased for near a thousand years, and no great temple has been dedicated to him within the last six hundred years. The Black Pagoda of Koṇārak was designed for him about the middle of the thirteenth century, but only to replace an older one which had become dilapidated. The new structure, however, fell down before it was consecrated, and was never rebuilt. In the Puri enclosure, there is a small temple containing an insignificant small figure of the sun, which is said to have been intended for the Koṇārak temple; but it is said to be the old one whose temple was being rebuilt and not a new one, and there is nothing to show that when it was made, the sun was received by any large number of persons as the deity for their salvation. The *Kapila Saṁhitā* praises the worship of the sun as a means of curing diseases, and the Koṇārak sun enjoyed its celebrity because it had cured a prince of leprosy. The temple at Gwalior enjoyed the same credit, and other temples elsewhere likewise depend for their celebrity on their healing powers. The temple of Mārtaṇḍa at Kashmir is perhaps the largest ancient temple of the sun extant; it dates from the beginning of the sixth century of the Christian era, and at the time of its foundation, heliolatry might have been more current than in subsequent years, but the *Rājataraṅgiṇī*, which notices it, says nothing in favour of such a theory;

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the princes of the time, such as Gonardya and his immediate predecessors and successors, being described as Śaivas.