Zhun, also known as Zhuna, Zhūn or Zūn, is a Solar deity, the chief god of Zunbils and the Hephthalite God of the sun.[1] Zhun served as a dispenser of evil and a bringer of justice and oaths. He was revered as a divine judge and a great warrior of the people who held truthfulness in the highest honor, as well as a lord of mountains in a mountainous place and a lord of the river Oxus, which may have held the primeval waters.
He may have also been the creator and lord of the universe in Hephthalite religion, though this particular belief is unfounded.[2] On coins, he is represented with flames radiating from his head. Statues of him were adorned with gold and used rubies for eyes. Xuanzang, a 7th-century Chinese monk, referred to Zhun as "Sungir".[3]
According to author André Wink,The south of the Hindu Kush was ruled by the Zunbils, offspring of the southern-Hephthalite. The north was controlled by the Kabul Shahis. The Zunbil and Kabul Shahis were connected by culture with the neighboring Indian subcontinent. The Zunbil kings worshipped a sun god by the name of Zun from which they derived their name. André Wink writes that "the cult of Zun was primarily Hindu, not Buddhist or Zoroastrian."[4]
In his travel diaries, the monk Xuanzang reported in the early 700s that the temple of the Hindu god Zun/Sun(Surya) was in the region. He also reported there were numerous Buddhist stupas in the area of Zabul. There were dozens of Hindu temples and hundreds of Buddhist monasteries, additionally drawing many pilgrims. According to Wink, the Zunbils had ruled over a predominately Indian realm.[5]
Other scholars, however, have connected Zhun with the Sassanid Zoroastrian deity Zurvān, the deity of time.According to Gulman S, its Afghan followers were, most probably, initially Zoroastrians. Mention of Žun and its devotees disappeared with the end of Žunbil dynasty of Zabulistan in 870. Its followers, according to Ibn Athir, accepted Islam.
According to N. Sims-Williams:[6]
Ulf Jäger states: