SUN-WORSHIP IN NEW BRITAIN, NEW IRELAND
AND OTHER PARTS OF THE GLOBE
Dr. M. D. PARADKAR

   It is true that India as well as Iran are the homeland for the worship of the sun, but some evidence for the existence of this worship in New Britain and New Ireland can be given. Duduk is the name of an organisation in the Duke of York, Ireland an New Britain (Gazette Peninsula) that observes certain ceremonial, the features of which pre-suppose the cult of the Sun. Fresh evidence of this cult of the Sun in England was gathered through the excavations carried on by the London and Middle Sex Archaeological Society in co-operation with the Corporation of London under the guidance of J.E. Price, one of the energetic officers of the Society during the latter half of the l9th century. Three temples on the line of the Hadriants Wall were discovered, one at Housestands in the l9th century, another at Carrowburgh. in 1950 and the third at Rudeheston in 1953 [See E.F. Lincoln's Britain's Unwritten History, 1959, p. 138]. Doubts regarding the genuiness of these things as antiquities of Roman Britain were finally dispelled in the year 1954 when near the Mansion House in Wallbrook (part of London) was discovered a relief of Mithra (Mitra of the Rigveda) staying Augustan legion having height of 17.5 inches as well as a width of 22 inches [Toyanbee J.M.C. -Exiciting Legncy of Roman Britain. Also see the Temple of Mithras in Wallbrook - Listner,11th November, 1954, pp. 801-03]. References to British Humanities Index, 1954 as well as 1964 contain a very interesting account of curiosity awakened among the people in connection with the excavations of Mithravism.

   James Hastings bas averred to the Sun worship among African tribals in the 8th volume of his Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics. A study of Andean religion of Egypt before and after the rise of Incas offers some evidence of Sun-worship. The solar year of these people was also divided into 12 months. Some scholars have identified the Egyptian God Osiris with the sun.(See Frazer J.G., The Golden Bough, abridged edn., 1925, p. 383).

   Navato family of North America had the custom of invoking the Sun as a powerful agent influencing human affairs. The Sun god makes his appearance among the Mordvins, a branch of Finno-Ugrian race. Japanese mythology speaks of the goddess named Amaterasu, which is a form of the Sun. With the introduction of Buddhism in Japan this goddess became associated with Buddha Virocana, the illuminator. The cult of Allat to the east of Mecca has many similarities with the worship of the Sun.

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