No. 11.— 1858-9.] SINHALESE MYTHOLOGY. 13 



That which first demands our attention, as the theme 

 of every poet, the personification of strength, firmness, and 

 greatness, is the Maha-mera or Mount Meru,* the Olympus 

 of the Greeks. 



&6 tad g©*od &q efgag qDgd—Schilihini Sandesa. 



The Vishtyi Purdna and the Buddhist scriptures place 

 it in the centre of Jambudwipa. It is represented like the 

 Olympus, to reach the skies, and so high, that a stone, 

 if let fall from its summit, would not reach the earth in 

 four and a half months. 



" A brazen anvil falling from the sky, 



Through thrice three days would toss in airy whirl, 

 Nor touch the earth till the tenth sun arose." 



Elton's " Hesiod, Tfieog," 893. 



Like, too, the Olympus on which the Gods were assembled 

 by Zeus, Mount Meru is the resorting place of the gods, 

 the abode of Sahra, or the Indra of the Hindus. 



©©<5gg@«3cB cSS-gSg ©g)gcf<ptto c^B — Gutiila-kdvya. 



Maha-mera is of various colours : on the east, it is like 

 silver ; on the north-east virgin gold ; on the south sapphire ; 

 on the south-east azure blue ; on the west coral ; on the 

 south-west blue ; on the north gold, and on the north- 

 west bright gold. These colours are imparted to the adjacent 

 rocks and oceans. Hence, the " Milk-white-ocean," or Kiri- 

 muhuda, which we shall hereafter notice under the second 

 head. 



This great mountain is alternately surrounded by seven 

 oceans and rocks,f and probably it is these seven rocks 



* " I had almost forgotten that Meros is said by the Greek to 

 have been a mountain of India, on which their Dicnysos was born, 

 and that Meru, though it generally means the north pole of the Indian 

 Geography, is also a mountain under the city of Naishada or Nysa, 

 called by the Grecian Geographers Deonysipole. and universally cele- 

 brated in the Sanscrit poems." — Sir William, Jones's Works, vol. i. p. 264. 



t "According to the geography of the Puranas," says Professor H. H. 

 Wilson, in his Hindu Mays, ii p. 58. ''the earth consists of a series of 

 central circles and six other annular continents separated from each other 

 by as many oceans of different fluid substances," 



