Note 431 — Chapter II · ORISSA.

In his ‘Antiquities of Orissa’ (p. 151), Babu Rajendra sums up exhaustively the argument for and against Vishnu being considered the same as the Sun in the Vedas, and, on the whole, makes out a strong case in favour of the identification. Even, however, if the case were much less strong than it appears to be, it by no means follows that what was only dimly shadowed forth in the Vedas may not have become an accepted fact in the Puranas, and an established dogma in Orissa in the 9th century, when this temple was erected.