Mount Meru

Mount Meru (Sanskrit/Pali: मेरु)—also known as Sumeru, Sineru or Mahāmeru—is a sacred, five-peaked mountain present within Hindu, Jain and Buddhist cosmologies, revered as the centre of all physical, metaphysical and spiritual universes.

Despite not having a clearly identified or known geophysical location, Mount Meru is, nevertheless, always thought of as being either in the Himalayan Mountains or the Aravalli Range (in western India).

[6] The dimensions attributed to Mount Meru — which all refer to it as a part of the Cosmic Ocean, along with several other statements that describe it in geographically vague terms (for example, "the Sun along with all the planets circle the mountain") — make the determination of its location most difficult, according to most scholars.

[25] Meru is considered as the center of the universe and is described as 84,000 yojanas high, about 1,082,000 km (672,000 mi), which would be 85 times the Earth's diameter.

The Sun and Moon along with all the planets revolve around Mount Meru which connects the earth with the under world and heaven with Shiva residing on top of the mountain at Kailasha.

[26] Mahabharata further states that the mountain gleans of gold when the rays of the sun fall on it and is said to contain lovely woods, lakes, rivers adorned with fruit trees, precious stones and life saving herbs.

[26] As per the Mahabharata, the Pandavas along with their wife Draupadi, traveled towards the summit of the mountain as a means to reach the heaven but only Yudhishthira who was accompanied by a dog, was able to make it.

[29] The Hindu epic Ramayana describes Kailash and Lake Manasarovar located in the Mount Meru as places unlike anywhere in the world.

[26] Vishnu Purana states that Meru is a pillar of the world, located at the heart of six mountain ranges symbolizing a lotus.

The manuscript explains that Batara Guru (Shiva) ordered the gods Brahma and Vishnu to fill Java with human beings.

To stop the island's movement, the gods decided to nail it to the Earth by moving the part of Mahameru in Jambudvipa (India) and attaching it to Java.

The concept of a holy mountain surrounded by various circles was incorporated into ancient Hindu temple architecture with a Shikhara (Śikhara) — a Sanskrit word translating literally to "peak" or "summit".