The Sun has attracted the attention of mankind for adoration all over the world from the very beginning of human history. It has attained the position of preeminence among the deities of nature in ancient times.

Sun-worship in ancient India has been significant from many points of view. The continuity of Sun-worship from the prehistoric times to the present day and its universality and popularity among all classes of human society make its study as one of the most illuminating topics of Indology. The Gayatri hymn dedicated to Savitr- the Sun-god in his aspect of stimulation, enjoyed to every twice born Hindu and practiced by many everyday from Tgvedic to modern times, is a positive proof of the continuity and universality of Sun-worship in its elevated and spiritual aspect. Likewise the practice of Arghya to the solar orb in many domestic as well as funeral rites of every Hindu even after the lapse of thousand of years after its beginning in the Vedic age is symptomatic of the vitality, strength and vigour of Sun-worship in India.

In the present work the author has studied a religious system which has not received as much attention from the scholars as its should have done. The work present successfully a historical study of Sun-worship in ancient India right form its earliest beginning in the protohistoric period to its maturity in the early mediaeval period (8th-13th century A.D.); and is the first of its kind, being based on a thorough, critical examination of a wide range of literary sources and the correlation of the data gleaned from them with an equally wide range of archaeological data.