Devakūṭa (Mountain)
Devakūṭa · deva-kūṭa, “the peak of the devas”
Devakūṭa is a mountain of Jambūdvīpa, one of the maryādā (boundary) mountains that stand around Meru. The Brahma Purāṇa names it with Jaṭhara: the two are maryādā mountains that extend north and south from the Nīla mountain to the Nishadha mountain. The teller describes them to the munis when they ask to hear the form of the earth and the arrangement of the bhuvana-kośa, the shape of the worlds.
Among the maryādā mountains
Meru stands in the middle of Jambūdvīpa like the pericarp in the middle of the lotus that is the earth. Mālyavanta and Gandhamādana stretch from the Nīla mountain to the Nishadha mountain, and Meru lies between them like the pericarp within a lotus flower. Beyond the maryādā mountain, up to the mountain Lokāloka, the Bhāratas, the Ketumālas, the Bhadrāśvas and the Kuru lands are like its petals.
Jaṭhara and Devakūṭa are two maryādā mountains. They extend north and south from the Nīla to the Nishadha mountain. The mountains Gandhamādana and Kailāsa extend east and west, eighty yojanas long, from the Nīla to the Nishadha, and enter the ocean. Nishadha and Pāriyātra are two maryādā mountains on the western side of Meru, and Triśṛṅga and Jārudhi are varsha mountains of the north, stretching east and west into the middle of the ocean. “The maryādā mountains have been told by me,” the teller says. “Two by two, they stand on Meru’s four sides as its jaṭhara (womb) parts.”
The valleys of the mountains
The valleys within these mountains are lovely, frequented by siddhas and cāraṇas. In them are lovely cities and forests, and the finest temples of Lakshmī, Vishṇu, Agni, Sūrya, Indra and the other devatās, served by naras and kinnaras. There gandharvas, yakshas, rākshasas, daityas and dānavas play day and night. These are the bhauma-svargas, the svarga lands on the earth, the dwelling of those firm in dharma; those given to pāpa cannot reach them in any number of births.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 18
Sources
- Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 18