Focusing on images of the Indian god Sūrya depicted in records from ancient India to the PostGupta period, this paper explores the historical and iconographical changes the images underwent as well as certain iconographical forms from outside of India. This research discusses the visual changes of the Sūrya image from the Parthiam Seythian and Kushan periods to the later Gupta period, plotting an iconographical transformation that would later underlay the images of Sūrya from the Vedic period on. The strong alien influence that can be seen in these images is closely related to the historical elements of this process of change and is characteristic of the Sūrya images.
