Arasavalli Sun Temple

About

Rising just a kilometre to the east of Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh, the Arasavalli Śrī Sūrya Nārāyaṇa Swāmy Devalayam stands as one of the rarest surviving monuments to Sūrya, the solar deity, in the Indian subcontinent. Together with the Konark Sun Temple in Odisha and the Martand Sun Temple in Jammu and Kashmir, it forms a small and precious fraternity of major Sūrya shrines, the only ones of their kind to have endured through the centuries.

The Temple's tower rises in the Rekha deula mode of Kaliṅga architecture, the same idiom that gave form to the great Jagannāth shrine at Puri. Skilled Vishwakarma Brahmins, the Maharanas of Odisha, are credited with its construction, and their mastery of orientation is evident in a celebrated phenomenon: twice each year, on specific days during Uttarāyaṇam in March and Dakṣiṇāyam in October, the first light of morning falls precisely on the feet of the presiding deity, even while all five entrance gates remain closed.

The atmosphere of the complex is one of ancient continuity, a place where solar devotion has been practiced across more than thirteen centuries, drawing pilgrims and seekers whose reverence for the divine light of Sūrya gives the Temple its enduring life.

History

Tradition, recorded in the Padmapuranam, holds that the sage Kashyapa installed the image of Surya at Arasavalli for the welfare of mankind, and the deity is honoured to this day as belonging to the Kashyapasa Gotra. Temple inscriptions credit King Devendra Varma of the Eastern Ganga Dynasty of Kalinga with raising the shrine in the seventh century CE. The Temple fell into disrepair over the centuries and was substantially rebuilt in 1778 CE by Elamanchili Pullaji Panthulu, with further repairs recorded through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, some funded by the Dusi family.

Significance

Together with the Konark Sun Temple in Odisha, Arasavalli is one of only two major Surya Temples in India still standing and in worship, since the Martand Sun Temple in Kashmir was destroyed in the fourteenth century. Its Rekha deula tower, raised in the same architectural idiom as the Jagannath Temple at Puri, was oriented with such precision that the first light of the rising sun still falls directly upon the feet of Sri Suryanarayana Swamy twice each year, in March and around early October, even as all five entrance gates stand shut. Stone inscriptions preserved within the Temple record centuries of royal patronage and repair.

Architecture

Rekha deula style of Kalinga Temple architecture, in the same idiom as the Jagannath Temple at Puri