Mount Meru/"Sumeru"

Does Mount Meru and/or Mount Meru [provisional?] cosmology feature prominently in any areas of the Pali Canon and/or Theraváda Buddhism at large?

The mountain is present in the Tipiṭaka but infrequent. Of its seven Pali names, Neru is mentioned once in the Apadāna and four times in the Jātaka verses, Sineru five times in the Saṃyutta and five times in the Anguttara, Meru twice in the Jātaka, Tidiva once in the Cariyāpiṭaka, twice in the Jātaka and once in the Vimānavatthu; Sumeru, Ādhāra and Tidivādhāra are found only in the Commentaries.

The Pali commentarial elaboration goes into about the same amount of detail that you’ll find in, say, Vasubandhu and his commentators. The material has had considerable influence on the representation of Buddhist cosmology in SE Asian Buddhist art, but doesn’t seem to play a prominent part (if any) in the way the Dhamma is nowadays expounded in Theravada countries.

There's a verse in the Jayamangala Gatha (a very post-canonical creation that's somewhat popular in some Thai Wats) that refers to Nandopananda, a nāga whose actions the Commentaries place at Sineru:
http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.ph ... 20#p171809


Mike

Coëmgenu wrote:Does Mount Meru and/or Mount Meru [provisional?] cosmology feature prominently in any areas of the Pali Canon and/or Theraváda Buddhism at large?

Yes. See: http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=5689

Unfortunately, it is now downplayed due to the onslaught of scientism.