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Sineru

A mountain, forming the centre of the world. It is submerged in the sea to a depth of eighty-four thousand leagues and rises above the surface to the same height. It is surrounded by seven mountain ranges: Yugandhara, Isadhara, Karavīka, Sudassana, Nemindhara, Vinataka and Assakanna (SNA.ii.443; Sp.i.119; Vism.206; cp. Mtu.ii.300; Dvy.217; it is eighty thousand leagues broad, A.iv.100).

On the top of Sineru is Tāvatiṃsa (SNA.ii.485 f), while at its foot is the Asurabhavana of ten thousand leagues; in the middle are the four great continents (Mahādīpā) with their two thousand smaller islands (dīpā). (The Asurabhavana was not originally there, but sprang up by the power of the Asurā when they were thrown down from Tāvatiṃsa, DhA.i.272; see, e.g., SNA.i.201).

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) and Mahāneru (M.i.338; also Neru, J.iii.247).

Each world-system (Cakkavāḷa) has its own Sineru (A.i.227; v.59), and a time comes when even Sineru is destroyed (S.iii.149).

When the Buddha went to Tāvatiṃsa, he covered the distance there from the earth in three strides he set his right foot down on the top of Yugandhara and his left on Sineru, the next step brought him to Tāvatiṃsa, the whole distance so covered being sixty-eight hundred thousand leagues. DhA.iii.216.