Mount Sumeru Quotes

“There are nine mountain ranges on the surface of the golden earth layer. Towering in the very centre is Mount Sumeru, with seven ranges forming concentric squares around it.”
― Akira Sadakata, Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins

“Mount Sumeru, with a height of some 560,000 kilometres, is far taller than the tallest mountain in the Himalayas. The name Sumeru (sometimes Śumeru) recalls Sumer (or Sumer), the centre of an ancient Mesopotamian civilization. The similarity in names seems to be no more than a coincidence, however. The earliest appearance of the mountain's name in literature is in the Mahābhārata, the great Indian epic composed between the fourth century B.C.E. and the fourth century C.E., where it is called Meru. Buddhism no doubt adopted the name from that source. By adding the eulogistic Indo-Aryan prefix su- ("wonderful"), we get Sumeru.”
― Akira Sadakata, Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins

“On the summit of Mount Sumeru is the heaven of the thirty-three gods (trays-triṃśāḥ), whose roles are also somewhat mysterious, except for Indra.”
― Akira Sadakata, Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins