Storia do Mogor 251.4

251.4

Here is their account of their fourteen imaginary worlds, said by them to be placed one upon the other in a mountain of very fine gold of twenty-four carats. They call this mountain Magameru Paravadam (Maha Meru Parvatam) — that is, 'Very Great Mountain.' They hold that it is sustained by an elephant, which rests in turn on a tortoise, and it, again, upon a snake, called Sexen (Sesham). If you ask them how that snake keeps its place with such a great weight upon it, they reply that they do not know, because [109], up to the present, their books make no mention of that, referring only to what is above it. In the books it is, however, stated as an unquestionable fact that, when an earthquake visits us, it is nothing but the snake moving the world off one shoulder on to the other to rest himself of his burden. They also say that the same snake causes eclipses.