Tibetan or Chinese origin, 18th century embroidery Tibetan Buddhist art of Cosmic Mount Meru

The setting, with beasts and floating skulls in a desolate landscape, focuses the mind of the meditator (or the initiate in a ceremony) upon mortality, and hence upon the eternal. Within the circle is a view of our world, seen from above (a sacred, imaginary conception, but based upon reality). The four continents are represented by groups of three buildings. India, the southern continent, appears on the left. Between the continents and Mt. Meru are seven concentric oceans and mountain ranges. Mt. Meru rises in the center. One heaven stands on its slopes, a second lies at its summit, and four float above it.