Surya Aarti (सूर्य जी की आरती)

The Surya Aarti, opening with 'Jai Kashyap-Nandan, Om Jai Aditi-Nandan,' honours the sun-god — son of Kashyapa and Aditi — as the visible face of the divine, dispeller of ignorance, and eternal source of light, health, and knowledge for all living beings.

In the Vedic cosmos, Surya rides a golden chariot drawn by seven horses, each said to represent one of the seven colours of light or the seven days of the week, with Aruna serving as his charioteer. This imagery conveys both his cosmic sovereignty and his role as the measurer of time. Daily sunrise rituals such as Surya Namaskar and the offering of Arghya (water oblation at dawn) are among the most ancient devotional practices in Hinduism, kept alive in millions of households across the subcontinent.

The lyric of this aarti moves from praise to petition — asking Surya Dev to cure afflictions of the eyes, relieve the suffering of the earth, and, above all, dispel the veils of ignorance and delusion (agyan and moh) and grant true knowledge (tattvagyan). This makes the Surya aarti not merely a hymn of gratitude for physical light but a prayer for inner illumination — an aspiration deeply embedded in the Gayatri, arguably the most sacred verse of the Vedas, which is also addressed to Surya as the divine inspirer of the intellect.

Devotees perform this aarti with particular fervour during Chhath Puja — a four-day festival unique in being the only Vedic festival where the setting sun is also worshipped — as well as on Ratha Saptami (the seventh day of Magha) which marks the sun's northward journey, and Makar Sankranti, when the sun enters Capricorn and the harvest season begins. The great sun temples at Konark in Odisha and Modhera in Gujarat stand as architectural testimonies to the depth of Surya worship in Indian civilisation.