The
worship is as old as the Vedas and the most sacred Vedic verse, Gayatri, is also addressed
to the Sun God. Lord Narayana is often described
as being seated in the midst of the disc of the Sun.
In later times, this worship was merged with the worship of
Lord Vishnu and most of the images of Surya are practically identical with those of Vishnu
except for some slight variation in symbolism.
In fact Lord Vishnu is also worshipped with the epithet of
Suryanarayana, which is very significant. |