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SURYA -Riding His Chariot
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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. |
