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Cosmic Mountain

The concept of divine regulation of the world from a mountain venue was universal in ancient times. The scholar of comparative religion Mircea Eliade says that "the peak of the cosmic mountain is not only the highest point on earth, it is also the earth's navel, the point where creation had its beginning" — the root. According to Eliade, "This cosmic mountain may be identified with a real mountain, or it can be mythic , but it is aways placed at the center ... Examples abound: the Mesopotamian ziggurat is properly called a cosmic mountain..." Richard J. Clifford prefers the term "cosmic mountain" to "sacred mountain". The mention of "holy mountain" evokes mythological thoughts of the cosmic mountain that stands at the center of the world. This is the place where creation began, a point of contact between the human and divine worlds.

Peter Jensen's landmark book Die Kosmologie der Babylonier [The Cosmology of the Babylonians] was published in Strassbourg in 1890. Jensen's book attracted considerable attention among European Orientalists of the day, as he articulated a theory destined to become the foundation of a later school of thought concerning the" Weltberg" or "world-mountain." His evidence was based on philological and archaeological material. In a seminal passage, Jensen homed in on the Sumerian word harsag (or hursag), found in passages describing temples. It often appears in the phrase I-harsag-kurkura, which Jensen translated as "Berghaus der Lander." The term harsag, isolated from its contextual usage, only means Berghaus (mountain-house), and can best be translated as "temple." There is thus a correlation made between temple and mountain. An image of a “cosmic mountain” figures prominently in religious practices throughout the ages and in attendant mythic narratives. The inaccessible mountain, stunning in its beauty yet elusive to all approach, is the most prevalent and compelling of all imaginary places recurring in cultural myth and private dream. The concept of the cosmic mountain was prevalent in different forms throughout the ancient Near East: from Mesopotamian and Ugaritic cultures, and as far as Egypt and Greece.

In Asia one finds the elaborate religious symbolism of Mount Meru, the cosmic mountain whose complex symbolic meanings are put forth. This axis, providing an opening through the three planes, makes possible communication with the sacred. This world axis may be symbolically represented as a world pillar, a ladder, a cosmic mountain, a cosmic tree, and so forth. Mount Meru, the cosmic mountain, carried the hierarchy of beings. Under the name of one of its peaks as cosmic axis, Mandara, the mountain functioned in the Churning of the Ocean. For the mythic world of Asia, Meru is the cosmic mountain, rooted in the earth, with its top in the heavens. It is both the axial mountain and the ideal divine city, and it provides the pattern for the cities of the kings on earth.

When Hindu beliefs reached Cambodia, they merged with the religious aspect of Mount Mahendra with early Khmer rulers becoming identified as the earthly incarnations of the deities of this cosmic mountain. Similarly, in early Taoism, K'un-lun is a cosmic mountain paradise connecting heaven and earth. China has Five Sacred Mountains: Mount Tai, of the East; Mount Hua, of the West; Mount Heng, of the North; Mount Song, of the Centre; and Mount Heng, of the South. It also has Mount Kunlun, a Cosmic Mountain. The ancient Iranian mythological motif of the cosmic mountain at the edge of the world was incorporated early on into medieval Islamic cosmology, known as Mount Qaf.

The Tatars of the Altai imagine Bai Ulgan in the middle of the sky, seated on a golden mountain. The Abakan Tatars call it "The Iron Mountain". In Iranian Sufism the mountain of visions is the psycho-cosmic mountain, the cosmic mountain seen as homologous to the human microcosm. It is the "Mountain of dawns" from whose summit the Chinvat Bridge springs forth to span the passage to the beyond. Images used in early Persian mysticism are of “emerald cities,” the “emerald rock” at the top of Qaf, the cosmic mountain (also called Alburz). East Kalmuck people in Siberia believe the world is centered on a great cosmic mountain they call Sumer. Its truncated summit is represented by the square in the middle of this picture they draw of their world.

According to scholars of the history of religion, people of widely differing cultures have believed that there is a world axis located at the center of the earth, which is marked by a cosmic mountain. Throughout Indian Asia the mythical cosmic mount Meru at the center of the universe was thought to be the axis mundi. In Sumeria the primeval sea begot the cosmic mountain consisting of heaven and earth united. It is said that the gods grasped this cosmic mountain, the axis of the world, and used it to stir the primordial ocean, thus giving birth to the universe. The cosmic mountain not only was the origin of the earth, but also came to function as the peg which secured the earth a firm support. The Center of the World is represented by the image of the Cosmic Mountain, seen also as a connecting axis.

The Cosmic Mountain, the World Tree or the central Pillar which sustains the planes of the Cosmos. For shamans, the connection between the seen (physical) and the unseen (spiritual) worlds, the axis mundi, is most often visualized as a great cosmic tree connecting all of the Kosmos. This cosmic tree, which functions like the cosmic mountain, is thought to make it possible for the two or three levels of the universe to communicate. Sometimes it holds up the sky, and it plays an important role in shamanism. The metaphorical picture is that of a huge tree atop a cosmic mountain whose height reaches heaven, whose branches encompass the earth, and whose roots sink down to the lowest parts of the earth. Both the sacred mountain and the cosmic tree are emblems of stability, and, like the top of the World Tree, the summit of the cosmic mountain is always said to be the highest place on earth. Sitting atop the cosmic mountain, one climbs the cosmic tree to reach the heavenly abode. The mountain and tree form the axis that connects the three worlds -- the underworld, the earth and the heavens.

The focal point of the cosmic motif in biblical imagery is often as not the cosmic mountain, undoubtedly because of the Sinai event. The cosmic tree rarely if ever appears apart from its mountainous base. Within the magic ring of myth the cosmic mountain is preeminent, both for its universality and its spiritual resonance as the meeting - place of heaven, earth, and hell and the axle of the revolving firmament. Unlike man-made sanctuaries, Sinai was created by Yahweh — it was the temple established not by human but by divine hands. It was the sanctuary which served as a model for all replicas, especially the tabernacle and the temple in Jerusalem.

For the Bible, cosmic mountain imagery is also a backdrop against which to see the special relationship between Israel and her own mountains expressed in national mountain imagery. Many of the salient features of the cosmic mountain known from foreign sources appear in the religion of biblical Israel in connection with Mount Zion. The Hebrew Scriptures contain clear allusions to the Ancient Near Eastern notion of mountains as the dwelling places of deities or the place where the gods assemble. Zaphon is the name of the cosmic mountain where El and Baal exercised their kingship. Zaphon (Heb. sapôn) designates “north” and is the cosmic mountain par excellence. The motif of rivers flowing from the cosmic mountain as a source of life has been incorporated into Hebrew literature. The Cosmic Mountain The “very high mountain” mentioned in Ezekiel 40:2, to which Ezekiel is transported at the beginning of his vision in chapters 40–48, is at once Mount Zion and the cosmic mountain, the center of the creation.

To Christians, Golgotha is the center of the world, for it is the peak of the cosmic mountain and the spot where Adam was created and buried. In the beginning of his Apocalyptic vision, John is in the spiritual degree; but after he has experienced or realized in his upward march the realities of the Lamb's book of life, he takes his place in the celestial mountain.

In Syro-Palestine the temple was the architectural embodiment of the cosmic mountain. The primary element of a sanctuary was the bamah, the 'high place', the local counterpart of the cosmic mountain on which the Deity was conceived as dwelling and where he sat enthroned as cosmic king. Jerusalem was fully established as the new Sinai, a cosmic mountain and source of order. The order of Eden, restored in historical time by the covenant at Sinai, was the present and future blessing of Jerusalem. The temple of Solomon would seem ultimately to be a replica of the holy, cosmic mountain of religious literature, replicating the heavenly mountain of YHWH at Mt. Horeb/Sinai. The Jerusalem of Solomon has been characterized by Michael Fishbane as "the new Sinai, a cosmic mountain and . . . source of order."

For the Cherokee, the "world" is their world, and at its center is the Cosmic Mountain, stated above to be the axis. Their council house was consequently modeled after the Cosmic Mountain. Most ancient cultures have their standing stones, megaliths, pyramids and obelisks. The cosmic mountain is such an important image that it has been the basis of sacred buildings. The direct antecedent of all Buddhist stupas was a cairn; and in the Sumerian myth a cairn is a summary representation of the cosmic mountain erected on the body of the anthropomorphic personation of the Mountain. Temple towers functioned as a representation of the cosmic mountain. A stupa may also suggest the stylized representation of a mountain.

These temple mountains were not uncommon in various parts of the world - for instance, the Ziggurat at Ur of the Chaldees, and Borobudur in Java. The Central Javanese complexes give the impression of being self-centered and complete in themselves as replicas of the cosmos (the cosmic mountain). As the cosmic mountain, Meru is imitated and repeated architecturally in Hindu temples, with sbikbaras, or “mountain peaks,” rising toward the heavens. It is repeated as the center post of Buddhist stupas. Though there is a common symbolism with the Brahmanic Mount Meru, the stupa is more than simply an architectural imitation of this cosmic mountain: it becomes, in its own right, the cosmic mountain. The cult of Balinese water temples embellishes the cosmic-mountain symbolism by emphasizing the role of the volcanic crater lakes as the symbolic origin of water, with its life-giving and purificatory powers.

The Shiva linga, like the Sri Chakra, is a symbol of the cosmic mountain. The three dimensional form of the Sri Chakra is also a Shiva linga. The Iron Pillar, as the World Tree or Pillar (skambhd), surmounted by Visnu's standard (dhvajd), is rooted in the Cosmic Mountain, which, as "Visnu's place," is the highest heaven. In Cambodia the linga appears, as a rule, associated with the symbolism of the cosmic mountain. At one time there was a relation between the temple, as representing the cosmic mountain, and the essence of royal power which was venerated.

In Mesopotamia, the temple could represent the cosmic mountain. Mesopotamian seals represent a god emerging from the cosmic mountain support the interpretation of the ziggurat as the cosmic mountain, symbolic of the earth itself. Properly speaking, the ziggurat was a cosmic mountain, ie, a symbolic image of the cosmos. Religions attempted to build their sanctuaries on prominent heights. Since no such natural heights were available in the flat flood plains of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), ancient priests and kings determined to build ziggurats, square or rectangular artificial stepped temple platforms. Functionally, temples were placed on raised platforms to give them prominence over other buildings in a city, and to allow more people to watch the services performed at the temple. Symbolically, however, the ziggurat represents the cosmic mountain on which the gods dwell. The priests ascent up the stairway to the temple at the top of the ziggurat represents the ascent to heaven.

The great ziggurat at Khorsabad, for example, had seven different stages; each was painted a different color and represented the five known planets, the moon, and the sun. The names of the Babylonian temples and sacred towers themselves testify to their assimilation to the cosmic mountain. The ziggurat at Til Barsip was called " the house of the seven directions of heaven and earth" Important temples were built on a terraced base, recalling all the more the image of the cosmic mountain, formed by diverse levels of existence and crowned with the residences of divinities and the supreme god.

These cities, temples or palaces, regarded as Centers of the World are all only replicas, repeating ad libitum the same archaic image — the Cosmic Mountain. The initial stone that is placed, the foundation or cornerstone, mystically represented the peak of the cosmic mountain breaking the surface of the primordial waters before rising to fill the heavens and earth. Potentates in lands influenced by Indian culture raised models in miniature of the Cosmic Mountain, on the possession of which they based claims to universal dominion. Eliade argued that the Chinese capital was perceived along similar lines — as an axis mundi, or a symbolic cosmic mountain: "In China, the capital of the perfect sovereign stood at the exact centre of the universe..." The Hollow Mulberry is a cosmic mountain and it is also identified with the Yellow Emperor.

Aztec temples were the axis mundi of the cosmic tree/cosmic mountain, which provided abundant "hearts" or animistic powers for agriculture. Mesoamerican parallels forcefully assert that the Teotihuacanos erected their tree, their axis mundi, in close proximity to the north house in the Plaza of the Moon near the cosmic mountain filled with life-sustaining water.

Mythic cities, temples or palaces, regarded as Centers of the World are all only replicas, representing ad libitum the same archaic image — the Cosmic Mountain, the World Tree or the central Pillar which sustains the planes of the universe. The cosmic mountain of Kaf/Qaf in Sufism has a significance beyond merely topographical detail. That mountain-climbing for Rushdie, Dante and 'Attar possesses some symbolic significance is evident. It involves guidance in climbing the cosmic mountain and even flying beyond it, transcending the ordinary human state. The ascent of a mountain is viewed symbolically by the Chinese as a creative move upward, and the Taoist's cosmic mountain (K'un Lun, the Abode of the Taoist Immortals) was considered the highest point on earth. The Cosmic Mountain allows the seer a vantage point of all- seeing; and its ascent is associated with loftiness. Cosmic mountain, cosmic waters, and sanctuary — this is the language of the sacred. Existing at the very heart of Creation, yet paradoxically everywhere, the archetypal Cosmic Mountain provides a crystal-clear yet constantly spiraling path to the Absolute.

By Frank Korom writes that " If we accept the contemporary criticisms, interpretations, and exegesis that has resulted from more sufficient evidence based on ever-increasing sources of information and documentation, then we must seriously question the use of axis mundi as a universal mythological concept. What began as a potentially useful analytic model for the study of a specific culture over a century ago has been transformed into a phenomenological ideal type grounded in an inaccurate original hypothesis, and scanty worldwide empirical evidence."