A blackstone stele depicting Surya, India, Bengal or Bihar, Pala / Sena period, late 11th - 12th century | 印度 孟加拉地區或比哈爾邦 拉帕 / 犀那王朝 十一紀末至十二世紀 黑石雕蘇利耶立像

Surya stands upright on a lotus with his consort Mahāsvetā at his feet together with his charioteer Aruna. The Sun god’s chariot is depicted beneath with a wheel at each side and drawn by seven horses. Surya wears boots and a short sword at his left side, vestiges of the god’s Persian origins. He is joined by his entourage, Pingala and Nikshubha on the left, Danda and Rajni on the right, and two kneeling archers Usha and Pratyusha at either side of the pedestal. Surya is considered by Hindus to be the personification of the sun and moves across the sky in his chariot. The archers usher in the daylight, dispelling the darkness with their arrows. The style of carving is typically eastern Indian from towards the end of the Pala/Sena period: compare the relatively unusual feature of the halo of flames behind the head with a late eleventh or early twelfth century Surya stele from Maldah District, Bengal in Susan L. Huntington, The Pala-Sena Schools of Sculpture, Leiden, 1984, fig. 244.