How is it possible that the Sun God did not get worshipped in one of the most epic temple built for him. The story goes back to 13th century A.D. , when 1200 WORKERS (stone carving workers) worked for 12 years to build the KONARK TEMPLE which is spread across 12 acre on the command of the King Narasimhadeva-1 of the Eastern Ganga Dynasty. The temple which was in the form of a chariot was built of stone which was brought from the hills of Khandagiri and Udaygiri about 100 km from Konark. It was an engineering masterpiece where the entire structure was built of stone and they were interlocked by metals . The entire metal skeleton was held together by a huge magnet which was more than 5 tons in weight. The konark temple which we see is just the MUKHASALA (the entrance) of the temple. The existing structure is just 127 ft high but the actual temple was 227 ft high. It is said that the Idol of the Sun God was made of ASTADHATU (alloy of 8 metals) and was suspended in mid air balanced by the magnet. King Narasimhadeva-1 had determined a deadline for the completion of the temple and if the WORKERS failed to do it then he had declared to behead all 1200 WORKERS.
The temple was completed in time except for the DADHINAUTI (the crown stone) . There was some problem occurring while the WORKERS were trying to install it and it used to fall down and hence they were not able to complete the work. On the second last day of the deadline the chief architect BISU MAHARANA had already gone into depression since he realised that the king was going to kill all 1200 men who had worked day and night and 1200 families were going to get destroyed in a day. Suddenly he saw a young boy coming in search of him , his name was DHARMPADA. The boy came and told BISU MAHARANA that he was his son. Mahrana had never seen his son since his son was 12 year old and all this while he was there busy in the work of the temple. He got really elated seeing his son for the 1st time and the father son had some moments of delight but after some time Maharana gave the sad news to DHARAMA that the king is going to kill all of the 1200 WORKERS since they were not able to build the temple in time. The 12 year old boy went ahead and to the utter surprise of everyone DHARAMA was able to install the DADHINAUTI .
The problem in hand was solved but still everyone started discussing that if the king gets to know that a 12 year old boy was the person responsible for this success of the work rather than the 1200 experienced WORKERS then anyway the king would kill them all. In the silence of the night DHARMABRATA decided to sacrifice his life by jumping into the Chandrabhaga river from the top of the temple and save the 1200 WORKERS from getting beheaded. Since the temple became unholy with the death of DHARAMA Sun God was never worshipped there. Myth says that DHARABRATA was an Avatar of the Sun God who had come to demolish the ego of the King who was in the same illusion which every human being with power and money thinks “HE IS IN CONTROL” of everything around him.