The Surya Purana was a Saura Upapurana devoted to Surya, the Sun God. It belonged to the tradition of Hinduism in which Surya was worshipped as a principal deity and was concerned with religious practices, vows, rituals, and teachings associated with solar worship.
The Surya Purana appears to have been a distinct work rather than another name for the surviving Samba Purana. References preserved in other Sanskrit texts attribute particular rituals and teachings directly to the Surya Purana.
Among the practices associated with the text were observances connected with Krishna Panchami, including rites for ancestors and a vrata performed for the attainment of children. These surviving references suggest that ritual observance formed an important part of the Purana.
The text was also remembered within Saura communities. Traditions recorded among Shakadvipa Brahmins around Jodhpur connected their own history with material said to have been contained in the Surya Purana.
No complete manuscript of the original Surya Purana is presently known to have survived. Its contents therefore cannot be reconstructed in detail, and much of what is known about it comes from quotations, manuscript colophons, references in other Sanskrit works, and later scholarly research.
R. C. Hazra's Studies in the Upapuranas identifies the Surya Purana as a lost Saura Upapurana and argues from the surviving references that it was an early work belonging to the tradition of Surya worship.
The Surya Purana therefore represents a largely lost branch of Saura Puranic literature, preserving traditions of Sun worship, sacred vows, ritual practice, and the religious life of communities devoted to Surya.
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