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Mircea Eliade - Mount Sumeru
Identifier
016306
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Mount Sumeru is the name of the central ‘world-mountain’ in Buddhist cosmology. Shaped like an hourglass, it is the polar centre of a mandala-like complex of seas and mountains. The square base of Sumeru is surrounded by a square moat-like ocean.
A description of the experience
This tiny thanka shows the pyramidal mountain, the garden which is in the intersection between bottom cone and top inverted cone and the rising cone above formed by clouds. Hence from the example, we can see that the idea of the two conjoining cones and the hourglass symbolism is one used in a number of religions.
Mircea Eliade – Shamanism Archaic techniques of ecstasy
Palaces, royal cities and even simple houses were believed to stand at the centre of the world on the summit of the cosmic mountain. We have already seen the deeper meaning of this symbolism, it is at the centre that the breakthrough in plane, that is, communication with the sky becomes possible