The Number Eight

Eight is a number of balance and of new beginnings. It is four doubled, the eight points of the compass, and it is seven plus one, the step that begins a new cycle after a completed one. Different traditions have drawn on each of these ideas.

In Buddhism eight is the number of the path. The Buddha’s Four Noble Truths end with the truth that there is a way out of suffering, and that way is the Noble Eightfold Path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. These are not steps taken one after another but parts of a single training, often grouped under wisdom, ethical conduct and meditation. The wheel of the Dharma, one of the oldest Buddhist symbols, is usually drawn with eight spokes for the eight parts of the path.

Buddhist art also has its eight auspicious symbols, especially prominent in Tibet and the Himalaya: the parasol, the pair of golden fish, the treasure vase, the lotus, the conch shell, the endless knot, the victory banner and the wheel. Each has its meaning, the parasol for protection, the conch for the sound of the teaching spreading in all directions, the endless knot for the interconnection of all things. They decorate temples, prayer flags and household objects, and Indian traditions knew similar sets of eight lucky signs before Buddhism adopted them.

Hindu tradition places eight guardians at the points of the compass, four cardinal and four intermediate, and worships the goddess of prosperity, Lakshmi, in eight forms. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali describe yoga in eight limbs, from ethical restraints to the final state of absorption. In Japan eight often simply means ‘very many’: the old texts speak of the eight million kami, and one of the three sacred treasures is the eight-span mirror.

For Jews and Christians, eight follows the holy seven. In Judaism a baby boy is circumcised on the eighth day after birth, and the festival of Sukkot, seven days long, is followed by Shemini Atzeret, the ‘eighth day of assembly’. The most famous Jewish eight is Hanukkah. The books of Maccabees tell how Judah Maccabee and his followers recaptured the Temple in Jerusalem from the Seleucid king Antiochus IV and rededicated it in 164 BCE with an eight-day celebration, which 2 Maccabees links to the eight days of Sukkot. The familiar story of a single jar of pure oil that burned for eight days appears centuries later, in the Babylonian Talmud. Today families light the eight-branched lamp, the hanukkiah, adding one light each night, with a ninth helper candle to kindle the rest.

Early Christians gave eight a new meaning. Jesus rose, the Gospels say, on the first day of the week, the day after the Sabbath. Writers of the second century and later began to call it the ‘eighth day’, a day beyond the week of creation that pointed to a new world. Baptism, in which a Christian died and rose with Christ, was its sacrament, and so many baptisteries were built with eight sides. A verse inscription traditionally attributed to Ambrose of Milan in the fourth century explains that the octagonal font suits the place where new life is given. The octagonal baptisteries of Florence, Ravenna and the Lateran in Rome are among the best known. Christian writers also recalled that eight people were saved in Noah’s ark, an image the First Letter of Peter connects with baptism. Western tradition usually counts eight Beatitudes, the blessings that open the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel, and some writers linked them with the eighth day as well.

Islamic architecture took up the octagon too. The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, completed in 691–692, is built on an eight-sided plan, probably influenced by earlier Christian shrines in the region. The Qur’an speaks of eight angels carrying God’s throne on the Last Day, and hadith describe eight gates of paradise, a theme repeated in eight-sided pavilions and gardens. In ancient Egypt, priests at Hermopolis taught that eight primeval gods, the Ogdoad, existed in the dark waters before the world began.

In China eight sits at the centre of cosmology. The ba gua, the ‘eight trigrams’, are all the possible combinations of three lines, each either unbroken (yang) or broken (yin). Tradition credits their discovery to the legendary sage Fuxi. Doubled, they form the sixty-four hexagrams of the Yijing, or Book of Changes, the classic of divination honoured by both Confucians and Daoists. Arranged in a circle, often around the yin-yang sign, the trigrams map the directions, the seasons and the members of a family, and they appear on Daoist robes, temple ceilings and the octagonal mirrors hung over doorways. The Eight Immortals, a group of Daoist saints, are among the most popular subjects of Chinese art.

Eight is also China’s luckiest number, mainly for reasons of sound: ba, eight, resembles fa, to prosper. The Beijing Olympic Games opened on 8 August 2008 at eight minutes past eight in the evening, and telephone numbers, addresses and car plates full of eights sell at a premium. In Japan eight is lucky for a different reason: the character 八 opens out towards the bottom, a shape called suehirogari, ‘spreading wider towards the end’, which suggests growing prosperity. This is popular custom rather than religious teaching, but it shows how a number’s meaning can grow from language as much as from scripture.