Upanishads on sun worship

Sun worship is an important religious rite of all civilizations of the world, prevalent since times immemorial.

Revered as the giver of life, light, heat and food to all beings, the sun is regarded  as the visible aspect of the divine. Indian philosophy accords the highest place to the sun, calling it as the ‘Hiranyagarbha’, the golden womb containing the seed of life, which must be worshipped at dawn, noon and dusk, as the harbinger and sustainer of life. Variously called as Surya, Aditya, Mitra, etc, it would be interesting to know what the Upanishads, the fountainhead of Indian Vedantic thought have to say on the Sun and its worship. A few of such  revelations go as under.

The Prashnopanishad, one of the ten important Upanishads has this to say. “The sun indeed is life. After rising, he enters the eastern quarter and infuses the life breath in that region. Then, successively, he illumines the southern, western, northern, upper, lower and interspatial regions of the universe. Thus, he is the giver of the vital breaths to all these regions. He rises as the primordial fire. 

He is of cosmic form, he is full of rays, he is the knower of everything, he as the visible form of the divine, is the ultimate goal of the seekers of knowledge, he is the one effulgence whose brightness none can equal, both as the giver of light as well as the giver of intellectual power and knowledge, he is the giver of heat, without which life would not be able to exist, he is the possessor of a thousand (innumerable) rays, he exists in a hundred forms- thus rises the sun as the very life of all beings”. 

The Kathopanishad describes the sun as “the eye of all beings”, meaning that the sun, who indeed is the Lord in visible form is the witness to all actions of men. The Upanishad goes on to say that just as the sun is not stained or diminished in effulgence by the defects in men’s eyes, so is the Lord, who dwells in the inner being of man, not affected by the misery or wrongdoings of men, but remains as a detached onlooker.

The Svetaswatara Upanishad describes the sun as Brahman himself, along with the moon, water and fire.   The Suryopanishad, a part of the Atharva Veda, pays obeisance to the sun in the following manner. “Salutations to Mitra, the shining. Protect me from death. Salutations to the resplendent one, to the cause of all.”

“May the sun in the east, may the sun in the west, may the sun in the north, may the sun in the south, may the sun grant us all our wishes, all our wants. May the sun endow us with long life”.  

Rising early, clean in body and mind, bathed in the golden rays (Savitr) of the rising sun, uttering prayers for the well being of oneself and the world is truly an edifying exercise.