Hemakūṭa, “the golden peak”, is a sacred mountain in the northern Himālaya. The Purāṇas place it between Gandhamādana and Meru. It is a mountain of golden ore and divine appearance, and siddhas and other divine beings live on it.

Origin of the name

The name comes from hema (gold) and kūṭa (peak or summit). It is the golden-peaked mountain. In the Purāṇic cosmography it is one of several mountains in the northern Himālaya region, set between the human world and the divine realms near Meru. It shines with deposits of golden mineral. The siddhas and divine beings who live there have chosen the quiet of its heights for their tapas (austerity).

Hemakūṭa in the Mahābhārata

In the Mahābhārata’s Vana Parva, Hemakūṭa is part of the sacred geography of the north. It appears in Lomaśa’s account of the tīrthas and sacred mountains of the north. This northern land frames the journey of the Pāṇḍavas toward Badarikāśrama and Gandhamādana.

Hemakūṭa belongs to the range of divine mountains that the tradition holds to be the northern boundary of Āryāvarta. Beyond it the ordinary world gives way to the celestial.

Sources

Mahābhārata, Vana Parva