Surya was once the centre of a distinct devotional movement, the Saura tradition, one of the classical sects of Hinduism alongside the worshippers of Vishnu, Shiva, the Goddess and Ganesha; though the Sauras have largely faded as an independent sect, their greatest monument survives in the thirteenth-century Sun Temple at Konark in Odisha, built as a colossal stone chariot with twelve pairs of carved wheels and a team of horses, a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the masterpieces of Indian architecture. Surya's family threads through Hindu myth: he is the father of Yama, the lord of death, of the twin physician-gods the Ashvins, of Manu the ancestor of humankind, and, in the Mahabharata, of the tragic hero Karna. Sacred to him are the lotus and the chariot. This atlas sets him as the solar face of the Hindu pantheon, vitality, health and the light of the soul.
Puranic and inscriptional sources describe a distinct priestly lineage, the Maga Brahmins, said to have been invited from Sakadvipa, generally identified with Iranian lands touched by Zoroastrian sun-veneration, specifically to conduct Surya's worship in a manner different from ordinary Vedic ritual, wearing a sacred cord in a distinctive style and performing rites some scholars read as showing genuine Iranian influence on Indian solar cult. Whatever the full historical truth behind the tradition, it stands as a documented case of ancient Indian religion consciously acknowledging a foreign, Iranian contribution to the worship of its own sun-god.