Sacred Numbers
What numbers mean in the world’s religions: one page for each number, from the One of the monotheisms to the 108 beads of a mala, with where each meaning comes from and the myths that grew around it.
These pages describe what traditions believe and where those beliefs come from. They make no claim that numbers have powers of their own.
The numbers
- One How the number one became the sign of the single God and the single source, from the Shema and tawhid to Ik Onkar, the Upanishads, the Neoplatonic One and the Dao.
- Three Why three keeps returning in religion, from the Christian Trinity and the Hindu Trimurti to the Buddhist Three Jewels and the Daoist Three Pure Ones, and what lies behind the triple goddess.
- Four Four as the number of the ordered world, from the four directions and elements to the Four Noble Truths, the four Gospels, the four stages of Hindu life and the four living creatures.
- Five Five in religion, from the Five Pillars and five daily prayers of Islam to the Sikh five Ks, the Five Books of Moses, the Chinese five phases and the long, misunderstood history of the pentagram.
- Seven Why seven became the great number of completion, from the seven days of creation and the menorah to the seven heavens, the seven circuits of the Kaaba, the seven planets and the chakras.
- Eight Eight as the number of new beginnings and good fortune, from the Noble Eightfold Path and the eight auspicious symbols to octagonal baptisteries, Hanukkah, the ba gua and Chinese luck.
- Nine Why nine matters in many faiths, from the Bahá’í nine-pointed star and the nine nights of Navaratri to the nine Muses, the nine choirs of angels and the nine of Chinese emperors.
- Ten Why ten carries weight in religion, from the Ten Commandments and the ten sefirot to the ten Sikh Gurus, the ten avatars of Vishnu and the Pythagorean tetractys of ten points.
- Twelve Twelve tribes, twelve apostles, twelve imams, twelve signs of the zodiac and twelve Chinese animals. Why twelve became the number of a complete order across the world’s faiths.
- Thirteen Is thirteen unlucky? In Judaism it marks faith, mercy and adulthood. How the Last Supper, Friday the 13th and the Templars became tangled in a modern superstition.
- Nineteen Nineteen in the Bahá’í calendar and the Nineteen Day Feast, the Báb and his eighteen Letters of the Living, the Qur’an’s nineteen guardians and the 19-year cycle of the Hebrew calendar.
- Thirty-three Why thirty-three recurs in religion: the traditional age of Jesus, the beads of the Muslim misbaha, the 33 Vedic gods, Japan’s Kannon pilgrimages, Dante and the Masonic degrees.
- Forty Forty as the number of waiting and testing: the Flood, Moses in the desert, Jesus’ fast and Lent, Muhammad’s first revelation, forty-day mourning and the origin of quarantine.
- 108 Why 108 is sacred in Asian religions: the beads of the mala, the 108 Upanishads, Japan’s New Year bell, Jain and Sikh uses, and the astronomical coincidences checked.
- 666 The number of the beast in Revelation 13:18: what it meant to first readers, the Nero Caesar solution, the variant 616, and how 666 became a modern superstition.
Letters that count
Alphabets that were also number systems, and what people read into them.