Mount Meru

Mount Meru is a sacred mountain with five peaks in Hindu, Jain and Buddhist cosmology and is considered to be the center of all the physical, metaphysical and spiritual universes.

Meru (Sanskrit: मेरु), also called මහා මේරු පර්වතය Sumeru (Sanskrit) or Sineru (Pāli) (Tibetan: ཪི་རྒྱལ་པོ་རི་རབ་), to which can be added the approbatory prefix su-, resulting in the meaning "excellent Meru" or "wonderful Meru" and Mahameru i.e. "Great Meru" (Chinese: 須彌山 Xumi Shan; Pāli Neru; Burmese: မြင်းမိုရ် Myinmo).

Many famous Hindu and similar Jain as well as Buddhist temples have been built as symbolic representations of this mountain. The highest point (the finial bud) on the pyatthat, a Burmese-style multi-tiered roof, represents Mount Meru.

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.

Some researchers identify Mount Meru or Sumeru with the Pamirs, northwest of Kashmir.

The Suryasiddhanta mentions that Mt. Meru lies in 'the middle of the Earth' ("bhurva-madhya") in the land of the Jambunad (Jambudvip). Narpatijayacharyā, a ninth-century text, based on mostly unpublished texts of Yāmal Tantr, mentions "Sumeruḥ Prithvī-madhye shrūyate drishyate na tu" ('Su-meru is heard to be in the middle of the Earth, but is not seen there'). Vārāhamihira, in his Pancha-siddhāntikā, claims Mt. Meru to be at the North Pole (though no mountain exists there). Suryasiddhānta, however, mentions a Mt. Meru in the middle of Earth, besides a Sumeru and a Kumeru at both the Poles.

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