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| The Buddhist Cosmos (Ajahn) |
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| Buddhist cosmology: Mt. Sumerus run through the center of "world-systems" or galaxies like our own and are surrounded by "continents" or planetary clusters (Wisdom Quarterly). |
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| Boudanath Mandala/Pagoda, Nepal (Gulmuhor) |
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| Mount Everest basecamp, Nepal, amid melting snow and tons of rubbish |
In May 2003 ABC reported, "With the debris of more than 50 years of climbing -- oxygen canisters, tents, backpacks, and even some bodies -- Mount Everest has been called the world's highest garbage dump." Fast forward seven years and Buddhist Sherpas are still trying to clean up. |
| Frozen, forgotten body (lewistown.k12.mt.us) |
The Milindapanha in German (payer.de)
2. Thus hath it been handed down by tradition -- There is in the country of the Yonakas a great center of trade, a city called Sâgala, situated in a delightful country well watered and hilly, abounding in parks and gardens and groves and lakes and resevoirs, a paradise of rivers and mountains and woods. Wise architects have laid it out, and its people know of no oppression, since all their enemies and adversaries have been put down. Brave is its defense, with many and various strong towers and ramparts, with superb gates and entrance archways, and with the royal citadel in its midst, white walled and deeply moated. Well laid out are its streets, squares, cross roads, and marketplaces. Well displayed are the innumerable sorts of costly merchandise with which its shops are filled.
It is richly adorned with hundreds of alms-halls of various kinds. And it is splendid with hundreds of thousands of magnificent mansions [vimana, spacecraft, UFO ships], which rise aloft like the mountain peaks of the Himalayas. Its streets are filled with elephants, horses, carriages, and foot-passengers, frequented by groups of handsome men and beautiful women, and crowded by men of all sorts and conditions, brahmins, nobles, laborers, and servants. They resound with cries of "Welcome!" to teachers of every creed. And the city is the resort of the leading people of each of the differing sects. Shops are there for the sale of Benares muslin, of Kotumbara stuffs, and of other cloths of various kinds. And sweet odors are exhaled from the bazaars, where all sorts of flowers and perfumes are tastefully set out. Jewels are there in plenty, such as human hearts desire. And guilds of traders in all sorts of finery display their goods in the bazaars that face all quarters of the sky. So full is the city of money and of gold and silver ware, of copper and stoneware, that it is a very mine of dazzling treasures. And there is laid up there much store of property and corn and things of value in warehouses -- foods and drinks of every sort, syrups, and candies of every kind. In wealth it rivals Uttara-kuru, and in glory it is as Âlakamandâ, the city of the gods (sky-devas).
3. Having said thus much we must now relate the previous birth history of these two persons (King Milinda and Ven. Nâgasena) and the various sorts of puzzles. This shall be done under six heads:
And of these the Milinda problems are in two divisions -- questions as to distinctive characteristics, and questions aiming at the dispelling of doubt and the puzzles arising out of contradictory statements in two divisions, the long chapter and the problems in the life of the recluse.
PREVIOUS HISTORY (pubba-yoga)
4. By pubba-yoga is meant their past karma (deeds in this or previous lives). Long ago, they say, when Kassapa the Buddha was spreading the Dharma, there dwelled in one community near the Ganges river a great company of members of the Order (Sangha).
There the monastics, true to established rules and duties, rose early in the morning, and taking long-handled brooms, would sweep out the courtyard and collect the rubbish into a heap, meditating all the while on the virtues of the Buddha.
5. One day a monk told a novice to remove the heap of dust. But he, as if he did not hear, went about his business. And on being called a second time, and a third, he still went his way as if he had not heard. Then the monk, angry with so intractable a novice, dealt him a blow with the broom stick.
This time, not daring to refuse, he set about the task but crying while doing so. And as he did so he muttered to himself this first aspiration: "May I, by reason of this meritorious act of throwing out the rubbish, in each successive life in which I may be born up to the time when I attain nirvâna, be as powerful and glorious as the midday sun!"
6. When he had finished his work he went to the riverside to bathe. And on beholding the mighty billows of the Ganges river seething and surging, he uttered this second aspiration: "May I, in each successive life in which I may be born till I attain nirvâna, possess the power of saying the right thing, and saying it instantly, under any circumstance that may arise, carrying all before me like this mighty surge!"
7. Now that monk, after he had put the broom away in the broom closet, had likewise wandered down to the riverside to bathe. And as he walked he happened to overhear what the novice was saying. Then thinking: "If this fellow, on the ground of such an act of merit, which after all was instigated by me, can harbor hopes like this, what can I not attain to?" And he too made a wish: "In each successive life in which I may be born till I attain nirvâna, may I too be ready in saying the right thing at once. And more especially may I have the power of unravelling and of solving each problem and each puzzling question this young man may put -- carrying all before me like this mighty surge!"
8. Then for the whole period between one supremely enlightened buddha and the next, these two people wandered from existence to existence among devas and humans. And the historical Buddha saw them too. And just as he did to the son of Moggalî and to Tissa the Elder, so to them also did he foretell their future, saying: "Many years after I have passed away will these two reappear, and the subtle Doctrine and Discipline taught by me will they two explain, unravelling and disentangling its difficulties by questions put and metaphors adduced.'
9. Of the two the novice became the king of the city of Sâgala in India, by the name Milinda, learned, eloquent, wise, and able. He was a faithful observer of all the various acts of devotion and ceremony enjoined by his own sacred vows concerning things past, present, and to come. Many were the arts and sciences he knew -- sacred tradition and secular studies: the Sânkhya, Yoga, Nyâya, and Vaiseshika systems of philosophy, arithmetic, music, medicine, the four Vedas, the Purânas, and the Itihâsas; astronomy, magic, causation, and spells; the study of war, poetry, transportation -- the whole nineteen. More>>
KATMANDU, Nepal – At age 13, Jordan Romero is headed to Mount Everest in an attempt to become the youngest person to scale the world's highest mountain — and complete his goal of climbing the highest peaks on all seven continents. 
FOX VIDEO It was recently Osama bin Laden's birthday. We know the bogeyman doesn't exist. He's simply a character taken out of the dystopic classic 1984. His "real" name is Emmanuelle Goldstein. But administration after administration finds him too valuable to drop. The Bush's flew the only planes in the sky after 9/11 for his family members (here on oil business) to be ferried out of the country to wherever they wanted. That ought to tell you enough of the military-industrial complex's complicity in the war pretext preparing. But it's too hard for anyone to believe. So happy birthday, Goldstein/bin Laden! And for anyone who does think he exists and poses the greatest threat to democracy and freedom (because he just hates that freedom, like all good terrorist do) -- how would we explain this story?Videos:
Members of the Buddhist community of Ewam Montana in Arlee announced that the Dalai Lama, leader of Tibetan Buddhists, will come to western Montana to consecrate the Garden of 1,000 Buddhas when it is completed. Luke Hanley, manager of the Buddha Barn at the Ewam Magadha Garden of One Thousand Buddhas is waiting for 550 more [statues] to be made and placed. As soon as there are 1,000 Buddhas in Arlee, they'll be visited by one Dalai Lama.
Nepal plans to offer same-sex couples the possibility of getting married at the Everest base camp and of honeymooning on a Himalayan trek or adventure tour. But the country also wants a chunk of the multibillion-dollar gay tourist market. Tourism is one of the main drivers of the Nepalese economy, and the government hopes to double the number of visitors next year to one million. Source
(KTLA) What some people won't do to win a bet or prove a point (like how foolish they are). Here are yet more examples of why drinking violates one of the Five Precepts. You might do everything right in life then, on account of a drink, go right down the tube.
The real Tiger's Nest is built into a sheer cliffside in what was until recently the last Himalayan Buddhist kingdom, Bhutan. But building monasteries so remotely that they are almost unreachable is nothing new. Even formerly Buddhist China has a miraculous example.
KATHMANDU (chinaview.cn) - As a journalist based in Nepal, Sudeshna Sarkar was excited when the world's highest railway service connecting Beijing with Lhasa was inaugurated two years ago. "I wished I could have been part of the first historic journey but was unable to go," she said, when interviewed by Xinhua on Monday. However, three years later, when she received an invitation from the Chinese government to visit Lhasa, the capital city of the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, she was "thrilled." "It was like a dream coming true," the Indian journalist said. "Tibet is a dream destination for Indians. Every year, thousands of Indian pilgrims brave high altitude sickness and the biting cold to undertake the parikrama of the sacred Kailash mountain in Tibet." More>>
"At yet a further level, the two triangles represent the twin mountains of Paradise, Mt. Sumeru and Mt. Kumeru. These two mountains are place at the antipodes of each other, one in north India (Mt. Sumeru or Kailasa), the other one in Indonesia (the Mt. Krakatoa volcano), such being the reason why they are represented as the inverse (or mirror images) of each other. The Hindus equate this mystic union of Fire and Water to the Vadava-mukha, the Submarine Mare. This is in fact the Krakatoa Volcano, where in fact Fire (magma) combines with Water (sea water) in a very fragile equilibrium which becomes disrupted at Doomsday, in order to destroy the world, as described in our page on The True History of Atlantis."
Photo: Alien art at the Science Museum in London. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has made public secret files on UFO sightings, with the dossier including a range of reports from a close encounter with a UFO over Kent and a letter from a woman claiming to be an alien warrior (AFP/File/Martyn Hayhow).
NEW DELHI – India readied its first lunar mission on Wednesday [10/22/08], seeking to convert its new wealth into political and military clout and join an elite group of nations with the scientific know-how to reach space.
"It is a remarkable technological achievement for the country," said S. Satish, a spokesman for the Indian Space Research Organization, which plans to launch the 3,080-pound satellite from the Sriharikota space center in southern India.
(mnh.si.edu)
Sineru is said to be surrounded by seven mountain ranges:
(SNA.ii.443; Sp.i.119; Vsm.206; cp. Mtu.ii.300; Dvy.217). Its breadth is eighty-thousand leagues, A.iv.100).
At the peak of Sineru is Tāvatimsa, the "Heaven of the Thirty-three" (SNA.ii.485f). At its foot is the Asurabhavana , the Place Where Asuras Live, which is 10,000 leagues. (The Asurabhavana was not originally there, but sprang up by the power of the Asuras when they were cast out of Tāvatimsa by the "King of Kings," Sakka (DhA.i.272; see, e.g., SNA.i.201).
In the middle are the four "continents" (Mahādīpā, literally "great islands") with their two thousand smaller land masses (dīpā).
Sineru is often used in similes, its chief characteristic being its unshakeability (sutthuthapita) (e.g., SN. vs.683). It is also called Meru or Sumeru (e.g., Cv.xlii.2), Hemameru (e.g., Cv.xxxii.79), Mahāneru (M.i.338), and Neru (J.iii.247).
Each "World System" (Cakkavāla) has its own Sineru (A.i.227; v.59), and a time comes when even Sineru is destroyed (S.iii.149).
When the Buddha visited Tāvatimsa, he is said to have covered the distance between the earth and his destination in three supernormal strides. He set his right foot on top of the Yugandhara mountain range, his left on Sineru, and the next step brought him to Tāvatimsa (suggesting that Tavatimsa extends high beyond Sineru). The whole distance covered is said to have been sixty-eight hundred thousand leagues (DhA.iii.216).
Mt. Sumeru
Payer.de
NAME Sumeru (Sanskrit) or Sineru (Pāli) is the name of the central world-mountain in Buddhist cosmology. Etymologically, the proper name of the mountain is Meru (Pāli, Neru), to which is added the approbatory prefix su- resulting in the meaning "excellent Meru" or "wonderful Meru." The concept of Sumeru is closely related to the Hindu mythological concept of a central world mountain, called Meru, but differs from the Hindu concept in several particulars.
SIZE According to Vasubandhu's Abhidharma-kośabhāṣyam, Sumeru is 80,000 yojanas tall. The exact measure of the yojana is uncertain, but some accounts put it at about 24,000 feet, or approximately 4 1/2 miles. It also descends beneath the surface of the surrounding waters to a depth of 80,000 yojanas, being founded upon the basal layer of Earth. Sumeru is often used as a simile for both size and stability in Buddhist texts.
Sumeru is said to be shaped like an hourglass, with a top and base of 80,000 yojanas square, but narrowing in the middle (i.e., at a height of 40,000 yojanas) to 20,000 yojanas square. (Interestingly, this would make it the symbol of Jainism, which conceives of the universe as having a definite shape -- an hourglass like tower).
Sumeru is the polar center of a mandala-like complex of seas and mountains. (In fact, the great Angkor Wat was laid out, as many temple bases are, in a pattern reflecting this conception of the universe and the known worlds and levels, with central pagodas emulating Sumeru and the lower heavenly worlds corresponding to it). The square base of Sumeru is surrounded by a square moat-like ocean, which is in turn surrounded by a ring (or rather square) wall of mountains, which is in turn surrounded by a sea, each diminishing in width and height from the one closer to Sumeru.
There are seven seas and seven surrounding mountain-ranges, until one comes to the vast outer sea which forms most of the surface of the world, in which by comparison the known continents are merely small island-like land masses. The known world, which is located on the continent of Jambudvīpa (the Indian subcontinent flanked by the great mountain wall that is the Himalayan range), is directly south of Sumeru. The dimensions stated in the Abhidharma-kośabhāṣyam are:
NAME........................................WIDTH..................Height/Depth
Mt. Sumeru................................80,000 yojanas.....80,000 yojanas
Sea............................................80,000 yojanas.....80,000 yojanas
Yugandhara mountains..............40,000 yojanas.....40,000 yojanas
Sea............................................40,000 yojanas.....40,000 yojanas
Iṣadhara mountains...................20,000 yojanas....20,000 yojanas
Sea............................................20,000 yojanas....20,000 yojanas
Khadiraka (Karavīka) range........10,000 yojanas.....10,000 yojanas
Sea............................................10,000 yojanas.....10,000 yojanas
Sudarśana (Sudassana) range....5,000 yojanas.......5,000 yojanas
Sea.............................................5,000 yojanas.......5,000 yojanas
Aśvakarṇa (Assakaṇṇa) range.......2,500 yojanas.......2,500 yojanas
Sea..............................................2,500 yojanas.......2,500 yojanas
Vinadhara (Vinataka) range........1,250 yojanas.......1,250 yojanas
Sea.............................................1,250 yojanas.......1,250 yojanas
Nimindhara range..........................625 yojanas..........625 yojanas
Outer Sea..................................32,000 yojanas.................shallow
Cakravāḍa (Cakkavāḷa)*................312.5 yojanas.......312.5 yojanas
*(Circular edge of the world)
The 80,000 yojana square top of Sumeru constitutes the "heaven" (deva-loka) of the Thirty-three godlings, which is the highest plane in direct physical contact with the earth. The next 40,000 yojanas below this heaven consist of a sheer precipice, narrowing in like an inverted mountain until it is 20,000 yojanas square at a heigh of 40,000 yojanas above the sea.
From this point Sumeru expands again, going down in four terraced ledges, each broader than the one above. The first terrace constitutes the "heaven" of the Four Great Kings, and is divided into four parts, facing north, south, east, and west. Each section is governed by one of these Four Great Kings, who faces outward toward the quarter of the world he oversees.
Forty-thousand yojanas is also the height at which the Sun and Moon circle Sumeru in a clockwise direction. This rotation explains the alteration of day and night: When the Sun is north of Sumeru, the shadow of the mountain is cast over the Indian subcontinent of Jambudvīpa, and it is night there. At the same time it is noon in the opposing northern continent of Uttarakuru, dawn in the eastern continent of Pūrvavideha, and dusk in the western land mass of Aparagodānīya. Half a day later, when the Sun has moved to the south, it is noon in Jambudvīpa, dusk in Pūrvavideha, dawn in Aparagodānīya, and midnight in Uttarakuru.
The next three terraces down the slopes of Sumeru are each longer and broader by a factor of two. They contain the subjects of the Four Great Kings, namely nāgas, yakṣas, gandharvas, and kumbhāṇḍas. The names and dimensions of the terraces on the lower slopes of Sumeru are:
NAME......................Height above sea....Breadth..............Length (on side)
Cāturmahārājika.......40,000 yojanas.......2,000 yojanas....24,000 yojanas
Sadāmada...............30,000 yojanas.......4,000 yojanas....32,000 yojanas
Mālādhara...............20,000 yojanas.......8,000 yojanas.....48,000 yojanas
Karoṭapāni...............10,000 yojanas......16,000 yojanas....80,000 yojanas
Below Sumeru, in the seas around it, is the abode of the Asuras who are at war with the Thirty-three gods. [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sineru, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Meru_%28Mythology%29]
"Mount Meru or Mount Sumeru is a sacred mountain in Hindu and Buddhist mythology considered to be the center of this "world system" [earth, its many heavens, and subterranean worlds]. It is believed to be the abode of Brahma and other deities of both religions. The mountain is said to be 80,000 leagues (450,000 km) high and located in Jambudvipa, one of the continents on earth in Hindu mythology. Many Hindu temples, including Angkor Wat, the principal temple of Angkor in Cambodia, have been built as symbolic representations of the mountain.
Legends
Mount Meru is mentioned innumerable times in Hindu mythology. Some of the better known legends are recounted here.
Meru, Vayu, and Lanka
Legends say that Mount Meru and the wind deity Vayu were good friends. However, the sage Narada approached Vayu and incited him to humble the mountain. Vayu blew with full force for one full year, but Meru was shielded by Garuda with his wings. After one year, however, Garuda took a respite for some time. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Vayu increased its force. Thus the apex of the mountain was broken and it fell into the sea and created the island of Sri Lanka.
Meru, Agastya, and the Vindhya mountains
Another Indian legend well known to this day is regarding the daily circumnambulation of the Sun around Mount Meru, and involves the sage Agastya. The legend goes that the Vindhya mountains that separate north and south India once showed a tendency to grow so high as to obstruct the usual trajectory of the sun. This was accompanied by increasing vanity on the part of that mountain range, which demanded that Surya, the sun-God, also circumnambulate the Vindhya mountains daily, just as was done for Mount Meru (identified by some as being the north pole). The need arose to subdue, by guile, the Vindhyas, and Agastya was chosen to do that.
Agastya journeyed from north to south, and on the way encountered the now impassable Vindhya mountains. He asked the mountain range to facilitate his passage across to the south. In reverence for so eminent a sage as Agastya, the Vindhya mountains bent low enough to enable the sage and his family to cross over and enter south India. The Vindhya range also promised not to increase in height until Agastya and his family returned to the north. Agastya settled permanently in the south, and the Vindhya range, true to its word, never grew further. Thus, Agastya accomplished by guile something that would have been impossible to accomplish by force.
Beliefs
The legends, puranas, and Hindu epics frequently state that Surya, the sun-God, circumnambulates Mount Meru every day. In late 19th c. when it was believed that Aryans may have had their original home, Urheimat, in Northern Europe, it was thought that Mount Meru might refer to the north pole. Some beliefs, local to that area of the Himalayas, associate mythical Mount Meru with Mt. Kailasa near Lake Manasarovar in Tibet. It is the equivalent central mountain in Buddhist cosmology.
WQ Conclusion
The earth was not generally considered round but flat. And a flat world seen from the side (from the spheres) would appear to have a massive "mountain," a "peak" above which the spheres are visible. Attempts to describe it in ancient times led to drawings and depictions by those who had not seen it but still assumed the world flat. Therefore, mandalas, surrounding a wide central white mass (stupa) appear flat in drawings. In modern times, with a modern understanding that the world is a globe (more or less), the assumption is that Sineru must be an ordinary mountain. But the dimensions and descriptions of it are far too large for it to be a protrusion into the ionosphere. Sineru simply refers to the standing high point of the planet as it revolves on its axis. It is, indeed, the axis mundi.
