Suryanarayana Swamy, Arasavalli

Surya is the god who need not be imagined. The Devasthanam names him Pratyaksha Daivam, the visible god — he who passes daily over the universe and sees all that is in it, source and sustainer of life, whom the puranas call the embodiment of Brahma, Vishnu and Maheswara. His worship is old as the Vedic dawn and is kept here in that form: those who make Surya namaskara recite the Maha Saura and Aruna mantras, whose bijaksharas are of the Rigveda and the Yajurveda, and the seven horses of his chariot carry the names of the Vedic metres — Gayatri, Brihati, Ushnik, Jagati and the rest.

The year turns on Ratha Saptami, Magha Shukla Saptami, kept as Surya Jayanti. From this day, the district writes, the land passes out of darkness into light: winter ceases, spring begins, the harvest season opens. His chariot has a single wheel and seven horses for the seven colours of light, and on that morning the Nija Rupa darshan is given. Andhra Pradesh has declared Ratha Saptami at Arasavalli a state festival.

Twice in every year his own light is brought to him. The temple is built, the Devasthanam says, so that the sun's rays focus on the feet of the god twice in the year in the early hours of the day, passing through the five entrance gates and resting there a few minutes. The temple gives those months as March and September — or, by its own festival reckoning, the opening days of October.

Arasavalli stands a kilometre east of Srikakulam, on the north coast of Andhra where the Telugu land runs up into the old Kalinga. Its name, the Devasthanam says, was Harshavalli, the abode of joy, and the daily slokam greets the Lord by it still — dwelling in Harshavalli, joined with Chhaya, Usha and Padmini, giver of all things. By the Padma Purana, the temple holds, Sage Kasyapa installed the image of Surya here for the welfare of mankind; so the Lord of this place is of Kasyapa gotra.

The sthalapurana tells how he came to be seated. Balarama drew the Nagavali along the furrow of his plough and raised the shrine of Uma and Rudrakoteswara on its bank, and the devas came to make obeisance. Indra came late, and pressing in at an untimely hour was turned back by Nandi at the door; fallen and in pain, he dreamt that his hurt would leave him if he built a temple to the Sun. Waking, he lifted three handfuls of earth where he lay and found the image there. With his vajra he opened the tank called the Indra Pushkarini still.

For the fabric, the temple states what its own stones say. Archaeological opinion, it records, reads the inscriptions here to mean that Devendra Varma, ruler of the Kalinga kingdom, must have built this temple and installed the image in the later half of the seventh century; their translations show grants of land from his successors, before the eleventh century, for perpetual lamps and for a school for pupils of the shastras and the Vedas.

Everything essential here is one stone: Surya with Usha, Chhaya and Padmini beside him, Mathara and Pingala the dwarapalakas at the base, the sages Sanaka and Sanandana holding the chatram above, and Aruna driving the chariot before him — all, the temple records, exquisitely carved out of a single black, finely polished granite. Five entrance gates open on the axis the light travels. Beside the presiding deity the Panchayatana is set as the Agama Shastras direct — Aditya, Ambika, Vishnu, Ganesha, Maheswara — so that here Shiva and Kesava are one. A Navagraha mandapam stands in the compound, and beyond it the Indra Pushkarini.