Mount Meru (Sanskrit: मेरु), also called Sumeru i.e. the "Excellent Meru" and Mahameru i.e. "Great Meru", is a sacred mountain in Hindu, Jain as well as Buddhist cosmology and is considered to be the center of all the physical, metaphysical and spiritual universes. It is also the abode of Lord Brahma and the Demi-Gods (Dev).
The mountain is said to be 84,000 Yojan high (which is around 1,082,000 km (672,000 mi), or 85 times the Earths's diameter). Many famous Hindu and similar Jain 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.
For the equivalent central mountain in Buddhist cosmology, see Sumeru.
Read more about Mount Meru: Location, Height, Puranic Legends, Javanese Legends
Famous quotes containing the word mount:
“For me chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black volutes torn by fiery flashes, like those which had hidden Mount Sinai. Like Moses, from that cloud I expected my law, the principle of order in me, around me, and in the world.... I would watch the buds swell in spring, the mica glint in the granite, my own hands, and I would say to myself: “I will understand this, too, I will understand everything.””
—Primo Levi (1919–1987)