Ophthalmologists and vision science are essentially unanimous that direct sun viewing, even at low sun angles and even briefly, carries genuine risk of solar retinopathy, permanent retinal damage that can occur without immediate pain since the retina itself has no pain receptors, meaning a practitioner may not realise damage has occurred until vision is already affected, a medical consensus stated repeatedly and clearly in ophthalmological literature and public health guidance rather than a matter of ordinary scientific dispute. This medical caution sits directly against sungazing's own promotional claims of safety and benefit, and the practice's comparative modernity, its lack of grounding in any single named traditional religious lineage's continuous teaching, and its tension with well established medical evidence together distinguish it clearly from the older, well documented solar reverence traditions, such as Vedic surya upasana, that involve ritual acknowledgement and prayer directed toward the sun without the specific claim or practice of sustained direct unprotected viewing that defines modern sungazing. The atlas records sungazing's claimed lineage and its contested modern practice honestly, including the documented medical risk, rather than presenting the practice's own safety and benefit claims as established fact.