The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c11.142.2

v1.c11.142.2

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.