Who Are the Sun Gods and Goddesses?

Who is the sun god? That varies by religion and tradition. In ancient cultures, where you find deities with specialized functions, you'll probably find a sun god or goddess, or several within the same religious tradition.

Sun Gods Riding Across the Sky

Many sun gods and goddesses are humanoid and ride or drive a vessel of some sort across the sky. It may be a boat, a chariot, or a cup. The sun god of the Greeks and Romans, for example, rode in a four-horse (Pyrios, Aeos, Aethon, and Phlegon) chariot.

In Hindu traditions, the sun god Surya travels across the sky in a chariot pulled by either seven horses or a single seven-headed horse. The chariot driver is Aruna, the personification of dawn. In Hindu mythology, they fight the demons of darkness.

There may be more than one god of the sun. The Egyptians differentiated among the aspects of the sun and had several gods associated with it: Khepri for the rising sun, Atum for the setting sun, and Re for the noontime sun, who rode across the sky in a solar bark. The Greeks and Romans also had more than one sun god.

Female Sun Deities

You may notice that most sun gods are male and act as counterparts to female moon deities, but don't take this as a given; sometimes the roles are reversed. There are goddesses of the sun just as there are male deities of the moon. In Norse mythology, for example, Sol (also called Sunna) is the goddess of the sun, while her brother, Mani, is the god of the moon. Sol rides a chariot that is drawn by two golden horses.

Another sun goddess is Amaterasu, a major deity in the Shinto religion of Japan. Her brother, Tsukuyomi, is the god of the moon. It is from the sun goddess that the Japanese imperial family is believed to be descended.