Deo Surya Mandir

The Deo Surya Mandir, also called Devark, is a sun temple dedicated to Surya in Deo, Bihar, and the principal shrine of the Chhath sun-festival. Unusually, it faces west, towards the setting sun.

Historians place its first building between the 500s and the 700s, and tradition numbers it among the twelve sun temples raised by Samba, son of Krishna. An inscription of 1437 records King Bhairavendra's dedication of the temple and its restoration by Hindu chieftains after Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji's invasion of Bengal in the early 1200s.

Some scholars argue it had first been a Buddhist temple. Built of carved stone in a blend of Nagara, Dravidian and Vesara forms, it is crowned by a dome bearing a golden urn, and draws its greatest crowds at the Chhath Puja and on Sundays.