Meru
मेरु meruThe golden world-axis mountain at the centre of Jambudvīpa, around which the Puranic earth-plane and its ring-continents are arranged. Shared with Buddhist and Jain cosmology.
Where this term appears
- Hindu cosmology: the fourteen worlds and the ages of the universe Essentials
…all these, and in the centre of this continent is the golden mountain Meru." Seven ring-shaped continents, each moated by a different ocean, arranged around a central island, and at that island's heart the gold…
- Anatomy of a Hindu Temple: Gopuram to Garbhagriha Temples
Varahamihira lists twenty kinds of temple, and the grandest of them are named Meru , Mandara , and Kailasa , the cosmic mountains, the dwellings of the gods.
- The Chola Age and the Temple as Institution History
… temple on this scale, named for the king, its tower a man-made Mount Meru at the centre of the realm, declared that the sovereignty of Rajaraja and the sovereignty of Shiva were bound together, each guaranteei…
- The Subtle Body: Nadis, Chakras, and Kundalini Yoga
…d pingala by the old solar and lunar names: "In the space outside the Meru, placed on the left and the right, are the two Siras, Sasi and Mihira.
- The Twelve Jyotirlingas Temples
…he penance of the Vindhya mountain, which wished to outrank its rival Meru, and the austerities of the Ikshvaku king Mandhata, at whose request Shiva is said to have settled on the island.
- The Vastu-Purusha-Mandala: The Plan Behind the Temple Temples
Above it rises the shikhara , the temple's tower, whose name means "peak" or "mountain-summit." The tower stands for the cosmic mountain, Meru , the axis of the world.
- What is a Mantra? Worship
To count the rounds, many use a mala , a string of beads, almost always 108 of them plus one larger "head" bead, the meru , that marks where a circuit closes.
- Devipuram And The Open-Access Model Treatise
A temple in the shape of the Meru The temple he would build — and the institutional embodiment that would emerge around it — became Devipuram .