Meru and Mandar are mythical gigantic mountains in Hindu tradition. Buddhist and Jain traditions also talk about gigantic mountain Meru. There is a very tall mountain in Arabic and Iranian traditions it is called Mount Qaf. The height of these mountains vary according to each tradition. But these are truly gigantic compared to any traditional mountain now known.
With extremely rudimentary equipments our ancestors found several celestial dimensions quite accurately. It did not take long for them to know that earth is spherical in shape and its diameter was accurately recorded by merely observing sky without even a telescope. More than 2000 years ago the learned people amongst us knew how to find distance between earth and moon and then earth and Sun.
Mount Meru is taller than 100 earths placed on top of each other according to Jain and Buddhist Literature. Where as in one of the puranas it is several light years tall. All these dimensions are not earthy but celestial. It was a puzzle for me as I wanted to build a reasonable picture,
Many of my paintings in this series contain a picture of mount Meru.
Excellent post but I was wondering if you could write a litte more on this topic? I’d be very grateful if you could elaborate a little bit further. Kudos!