It is not simply a point at the center of a circle; it is a vertical shaft which links macrocosm with microcosm, gods with men, timelessness with time. The Mahabharata especially abounds in evocations of the dreamlike vision of the mountain of the gods fresh, strong, and pure like a recollection of the beginning of the world. (Notice Dee’s beard doing the downward triangle. While one set is working, the other place rests in the shadow of the mountain which to them measures about 100,000 Yojans wide. l4W. 8' G. Tucci, The Theorj, and Prac,tice of the Mandala, trans. History of Religions . The continent on which we humans dwell is Jambudvipa. ," p. 18. 52-53; Kirfel, p. 105. The dimensions attributed to Mount Meru, all references to it being as a part of the Cosmic Ocean, with several statements that say, “The Sun along with all the planets circle the mountain,” make determining its location most difficult, according to most scholars. See, e.g., Eliade, 1947/1969 and 1949/2004; von Heine-Geldern, 1930 and 1942; ... that the shape of Mount Meru in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa is defined by the logic of stereographic projection; and (2010), that there may be a link between the names of the purāṇic Mount Meru and the “Climate of Meroë,” one "Kosmische Vorstellungen im Bilde prahistorischer Zeit: Erdberg, Himmelsberg, Erdnabel und Weitstrome," Anihropos 9 (1914): 956-79. so forth;" Meru in its incorporation into India had to be adapted to the earth and world symbolism of indigenous tradition." 27 Deopara Inscription, cited by Mus, Barabudur (n. 3 above), pp. 70 See Rowland (n. 4 above), pp. 112-13.l2 F. D. K. Bosch, The Golden Germ (The Hague, 1960). 79 Rowland (n. 4 above), p. 458. The temple usually stands upon a lofty terraced plinth (a block serving…, …dealing with the cosmic mountain Meru as the source of all creation and with the divine origin of water. In Japan, a, detailed representation of the orbits of the sun and moon and the, lunar phases was based on passages from the fifth-century Abhidhar, makoia, with Meru figuring in the plan as a square in the center.33, Indigenous Chinese cosmological theories, on the other hand, gave, special attention to astronomy but did not adopt a cosmic mountain. Nieuwenkamp as an important feature of its design.49. traveler Chou Ta-kuan. In the well-known myth, it was Mount Mandara (the eastern of Meru's four buttress mountains) that was used by the gods as a churning stick to create the world and its furniture out of the ocean of milk; but, especially in Southeast Asia, Meru often stood in for Mandara, and thereby Meru came to be assimilated to the padmamala or lotus rhizoma (which is symbolically the root of creation) in that it drew up the elixir of life from the ocean of milk just as the lotus draws up water. Around him (as around Meru) the rest of the world moves; he is immovable. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). The lotus symbolism of Meru is indeed pervasive. Meru agreed. In Avestan cosmogony, Mt. make up only 5% of reality. 87-109, esp. M. Eliade, The M.yth of ihe Eternal Reiurn, or Cosmos and History, trans. A map is a misleading metaphor, for a map is two-dimensional. It unfolds from an invisible point above the summit, pouring out of that immaterial center (bindu), from which the evolution of the universe as consciousness proceeds, and coming down through spheres of subtle mind stuff to the compact realm of visible-tangible forms. In tantric meditation, the meru is the median canal running upward from the perineum to the space above the head. 78-79; Kramrisch (n. 25 above), p. 278. Mount Meru (or Sumeru, or Shumisen) is a huge, sacred golden mountain in the centre of our universe which supports the heavens and passes through the centre of the Earth—or at least this is what the ancient Hindu texts state. As a language of culture, the Meru-centered cosmology spread wherever indigenous notions of sacred space, cosmic centrality, and rupture of plane lent themselves to the adoption of it as a vehicle of high culture. The courses of the heavenly bodies are governed by Meru. All these towers were so arranged that the spectator approaching from any of the cardinal points would be able to see just thirty-three of them-the gods on Meru. Like the king, the self (dtman or ahamkdra) of the aspirant to salvation stands poised between the physical world out there and the mystic inner space in here where distinctions between subject and object are obliterated. Therefore, in another sense, Meru and all that goes with it are not only physics but metaphysics, beyond the possibility of concrete objective prehension. Mount Meru is of course embedded in a complex of cosmographic dispositions which are spelled out in great detail in some sources- particularly the purdnas and certain Buddhist texts-but which need not be pursued here into its rococo refinements. 21-22 106 Reynolds (n. 89 above), p. 217.