Why is 108 the sacred number in Yoga
Since I started practising yoga I have always wondered what the significance of the number 108 was. I was intrigued why Sun Salutations were practised 108 times – often for charity and why there were 108 beads on a mala.
The one benefit of lockdown #3 is that I have had the time to research all these things that have been bugging me for so long. So here goes with what was initially intended to be a short summary but which has now grown to several pages and I am still only scratching the surface.
The number 108 is considered sacred
The number 108 is considered sacred in the dharmic [from India] religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism and can be traced right back to the ancient tradition of Vedism [approx 1750-500 BCE].
It is not known why this number was so auspicious but it is thought to represent the whole of existence and to refer to spiritual awakening. It is also found outside of these religions in yoga, prehistory, mathematics and even the natural world.
In fact the number 108 crops up so much surely it cannot be just a coincidence. Here are just some of the examples I have found.
In the natural world, the distance between the earth and the sun is 108 times the diameter of the sun and the distance between the earth and the moon is 108 times the diameter of the moon. Is this why our ancestors considered 108 as sacred? And if so how on earth [if you excuse the pun] did they know?
108 man-built structures used for worship…
108 is also significant in the number of man-built structures used for worship. In Belize, the High Temple of Lamanai is 108 feet high as is the Tikai temple in Guatemala. The Sarsen Circle at Stonehenge is 108 feet in diameter. Many Indian temples have 108 steps and there are believed to be 108 sacred sites in India.
In yoga and Hinduism, a mala has 108 beads plus the Guru bead and in Sikhism, a mala has 108 woollen knots rather than beads.
There are 108 Upanishads- ancient Vedic scriptures dating from approximately 700-500 BCE.
Mantras such as the Gayatri Mantra and Maha Mantra [the Hare Krishna mantra] are chanted 108 times. Hindu deities have 108 names. In Jainism, there are 108 virtues such as ahimsa or non-harming. Pranayama is often practised in 108 rounds. It is also considered auspicious to perform Surya namaskars 9 times there being 12 poses in each thereby totalling 108.
There are considered to be 108 main energy channels or nadis through which Prana flows in the body and in Ayurveda, there are 108 marma points. Marma points are pressure points similar to acupressure or acupuncture points.
Perhaps slightly more macabre is that 108F is the temperature at which the body’s organs start to fail.
There are 108 traditional Indian types of dance used to worship the deities or tell their stories.
There are 54 letters in the Sanskrit alphabet each having a masculine and feminine form making a total of 108
There are 108 postures in the Wu style of Tai Chi
There are 108 feelings and 108 earthly desires in Buddhism and 108 holy books in Tibet.
The buddha answered 108 questions in the Lankavatara Sutra.
In Islam 108 refers to God
In Christianity, the words “firstborn “are used 108 times in the Bible and the words “in truth” and “to forgive” are also used 108 times in the new revised standard version.
In Hinduism, it is believed that the soul passes through 108 stages of spiritual development on its way to liberation
The number is also significant in mathematics and geometry. 108 is a “Harshad” number which means that it is divisible by the sum of its digits. In Sanskrit the word “harshad” means “joy giver”.
It is also the “Golden Ratio” sometimes called the divine proportion or the Fibonacci sequence. It starts 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55 and continues ad infinitum – each number is the sum of the 2 preceding numbers [used in some of the most famous buildings in the world such as the Eiffel Tower the Egyptian Pyramids and the Pantheon. This also appears in works by the old masters and was perhaps most famously illustrated by Leonardo Da Vinci – the drawing of the man and fivepoint star in a circle. It is also used in marketing by companies such as Pepsi and Twitter but also exists in the natural world in flower petals, seed heads or pinecones.
To read more about this in nature see this interesting article https://www.mathnasium.com/examples-of-the-golden-ratio-in-nature
So, I hope that you find this interesting and that this article inspires you to do your own research and reading on this topic. Let me know what you discover!