In number magic, symbology, alchemy, religion, and other expressions of culture - at least west of India - and to some extent beyond that - three, four, seven, and twelve are the most frequently occurring numbers. Three as the number of the spiritual world, and four as the number of the material world. We will take a closer look at that in a while. An interesting fact, however, is that seven is three plus four, and twelve is three times four. So, these numbers are mathematically connected. We can say that three and four generate seven and twelve, which, covering both the spiritual and the material dimension, symbolise the whole: cosmos. (Seven and Twelve are further discussed in part 2 and 3 of this series of articles.)
Three: the Spiritual or Immaterial World
Three is the number of the divine. As so many other things, it derives from the Sumerians who counted three major gods: Anu, En-lil, and Enki (Ea), each ruling a third of cosmos. This idea was wide-spread. Sometimes it has been associated with a family-like trinity, like the old Egyptians' Isis, Osiris, and Horus; sometimes with other forms of trinities, like the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in Christendom. In India it has been associated with the triad: Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva (Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer) as in the Mahabharata. Or in the Upanishads: Brahma, Rudra, Vishnu; as forms of the absolute. The list could go on...
The doshas of Ayurveda are three [Vata, Pitta, Kapha].
Sometimes three is counted as three times three, as in the nine Muses: Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, Urania.
Four: Matter, the Physical World
Four is the number of the material world. This was expressed by the four elements: earth, water, air, fire; and in analogy with that with the four temperaments or humours: sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic - related to the four body fluids: blood [sanguis], phlegm [phlegma], yellow bile [cholera], black bile [melankholia]. They were also corresponding to the four seasons. This was the basis for the medical paradigm that dominated the Antiquity and ahead, until about 200 years ago.
Buddhism, too, lists four elements, the same ones, but expresses them as earth, water, fire, and wind. It also has four noble truths, four foundations of mindfulness, and more. Hinduism has four main castes, four aims of life, etc.
Sometimes the four elements are associated with colours. As in Islam: red, yellow, green, and blue; or for the old Hebrews: blue, purple, red, white. European heraldry specifies four colours which represent the Cardinal virtues: black (prudence), blue (justice), green (fortitude), purple (temperance). The phases of the Alchemical Opus Magnum were four: blackening (nigredo), whitening (albedo), yellowing (citrinitas), reddening (rubedo).
The world was said to have four corners, and there are four directions: North, East, South, West; which have sometimes been seen as a symbol for cosmos in its entirety.
There are the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and many other quaternities in Judaism and Christianity.
In old Egypt, Horus had four sons: Imsety, Qebehsenuf, Hapy, and Duamatef; and in the mummification four organs were saved, each in one canopy jar: liver, intestines, lungs, and stomach. Each one of the sons was a guardian of one of the organs, and respective jars depicted the right guardian.
Pythagoras claimed that:
"the quaternity defines all earthly possibilities".
In physical theory of relativity, the space-time continuum, the continuum in which all physical objects exists, has four dimensions; the three spatial ones [length, width, depth], and time as the fourth. In genetics there are also four nucleobases in RNA and DNA [adenine, thymine, guanine, cytosine].
Read the whole series:
(This material has previously been published in TMA/Meriondho Leo and in my e-book “Numericon”.)
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