Sun Temple
The most famous temple to the sunis at
Konarakin Orissastate, right on the
shore of the Bay of Bengal. The temple
was built by King Narasimhadeva (r.
1238–1264), a monarch in the Ganga
dynasty, and the entire temple was
intended to be a likeness of the sun’s
chariot. It has twelve great wheels
carved on the sides at the temple’s low-
est level, and in front, statues of several
colossal horses. As at the temples of
Khajuraho, the lower levels here are
covered with eroticand sexually explicit
carvings, to which people have given
differing interpretations: Some claim
that these sanction carnal pleasure as a
religious path, some interpret them alle-
gorically as representing human union
with the divine, and still others view
them as teaching that the desire for
pleasure must ultimately be transcended
to attain the divine.
The temple was built on a massive
scale; according to one estimate, the
central spire would have been over 200
feet high. It is uncertain whether this
spire was ever actually completed, since
the sandy soil on which the temple plat-
form was built would have been unable
to support the weight of such an enor-
mous structure. This same unstable soil
has been the greatest contributor to the
temple’s increasing deterioration. The
primary structure left at the site is the
jagamohan(assembly hall), which was
filled with sand in the nineteenth century,
in an effort to prevent further collapse.
For further information see Roy Craven,
Indian Art, 1997.
Suparna
(“having beautiful wings”) Epithet of the
god Vishnu’svehicle, the divine eagle
Garuda. See Garuda.
Superhuman Powers
Widely believed to be attainable, either
through voluntarily suffering harsh phys-
ical asceticism(tapas) or as products of
high spiritual attainment. See Siddhi.
Surapana
(“liquor-drinking”) In the dharma liter-
ature, one of the Four Great Crimes
whose commission made one an out-
cast from society. Although in modern
times the word surais the term for
“wine,” here it was believed to refer to a
particular type of spirituous liquor
made from rice flour. For members of
the three highest social groups—brah-
mins, kshatriyas, and vaishyas, the
most commonly prescribed penance
(prayashchitta) for habitually drinking
sura was to drink this same beverage
boiling hot, until one died. Interestingly,
this penalty does not apply to members
of the lowest social class, the shudras.
This difference reflected their lower sta-
tus, in which they were not held to the
same sorts of scrupulous standards as
the “twice-born.” Despite the harsh
penalty for drinking sura, there were
other sorts of intoxicantsthat kshatriyas
and vaishyas could drink without penalty,
although brahmins who drank these
had to perform mild penances.Surasa
In Hindu mythology, Surasa is the mother
of all the Nagas, a class of minor
divinities conceived in the form of ser-
pents. In the Ramayana, the earlier of
the two great Indian epics, Surasa takes
the form of a gigantic serpent to test the
fortitude of the monkey-god Hanuman,
who jumps over the sea to Lankato
search for Sita, the god Rama’s kid-
napped wife. Surasa tells Hanuman that
no one can go by without passing
through her mouth, and in response
Hanuman makes himself larger and
larger. Surasa in turn opens her jaws
wider and wider, and finally Hanuman
becomes very small and darts in and out
of her mouth. Surasa, pleased with
Hanuman’s ingenuity and courage, gives
him her blessing.Surat-Shabd-Yoga
Mystical discipline in the Radha Soami
religious community, which stresses theSurat-Shabd-Yoga