Meru

Mount Meru (Sanskrit: मेरु) or Sineru or Mahameru is a sacred cosmological mountain with five peaks in Hindu cosmology and is considered to be the center of all the physical, metaphysical and spiritual universes.

Many famous Hindu temples have been built as symbolic representations of this mountain. 

The dimensions attributed to Mount Meru, all references to it being as a part of the Cosmic Ocean, with several statements that say, "The Sun along with all the planets circle the mountain," make determining its location most difficult, according to most scholars.

The Surya Siddhanta mentions that Mount Meru lies in 'the middle of the Earth' ("bhurva-madhya") in the land of the Jambu Dvip). Narpatijayacharyā, a ninth-century text, based on mostly unpublished texts of Yāmal Tantr, mentions "Sumeruḥ Prithvī-madhye shrūyate drishyate na tu" (Su-meru is heard to be in the middle of the Earth, but is not seen there'). Vārāhamihira, in his Pancha-siddhāntikā, claims Mount Meru to be at the North Pole (though no mountain exists there). Surya Siddhānta, however, mentions a Mount Meru in the middle of Earth, besides a Sumeru and a Kumeru at both the Poles.

There exist several versions of Cosmology in existing Hindu texts. In one of them, cosmologically, the Meru mountain was also described as being surrounded by Mount Mandara to the east, Supasarva Mountain to the west, Kumuda Mountain to the north and Kailasa to the south.

Mount Meru is described to have mythical aspects, being described as 84,000 Yojana high (about 1,082,000 km or 672,000 miles), which would be 85 times the Earth's diameter), and notes that the Sun along with all the planets in the Solar System revolve around it.

One Yojana can be taken to mean about 11.5 km (9 miles) though its magnitude seems to differ over time periods, e.g. the Earth's circumference is 3,200 yojanas according to Vārāhamihira and slightly less so in the Āryabhatiya, but is said to be 5,026.5 yojanas in the Suryasiddhānta. The Matsya Purana and the Bhāgvata Purāna along with some other Hindu texts consistently give the height of 84,000 yojanas to Mount Meru which translates into 672,000 miles or 1,082,000 kilometers.

Mount Meru was said to be the residence of King Padamja Brahma in antiquity.