We regard num­bers as com­mon­place, where­as in the ancient Hun­gari­an world of belief the num­ber seven was held sac­red, as five was by the Chinese and nine by the Indo-European peoples. These can be explained by causes that lie closest to man – the five fin­gers of the hand, the seven days of each lunar quarter, the nine months of the embryo's growth. Across the vari­ous cul­tures, the most renowned of the hon­oured num­bers are 3, 7, 9, 12, 13, 50, 66, 70, 77, seven-times-seven, 99, 100, 300, 600 and 900.

Hid­den in the sequence of num­bers is a curi­ous num­ber, prac­tic­ally unknown to the West­ern world: 108. For those gif­ted with a sense of cos­mic pro­por­tion it is of unpar­alleled import­ance, and in the Indi­an tra­di­tion one hun­dred and eight is the num­ber that orders the micro-, meso- and mac­ro­cosm alike.

Micro­cos­mic – Of the seven chakras the most import­ant is the heart chakra, from which one hun­dred and one chan­nels issue. The sum of the chakras and the chan­nels is 108, and the sushumna con­duit lead­ing to the crown chakra is the path along which con­scious­ness ascends in the soul that attains self-real­isa­tion. In the body there exist 108 vital organs, and in the subtle body as many sens­it­ive points. It is through these sens­it­ive points that con­scious­ness comes into con­tact with the body of flesh and blood.

Accord­ing to the mys­ti­cism of tan­tra, man takes 21,600 breaths a day, 10,800 in the day­time and as many at night. The day­time breaths are under the influ­ence of the Sun, the night-time ones under that of the Moon. Every wak­ing breath ought to glor­i­fy God, but it is advis­able to recite at least a hun­dredth as many (108) man­tras. Shiva bequeathed one hun­dred and eight kinds of asana to man­kind, and as many kinds of med­it­a­tion exist.

Man's desires, lies and forms of ignor­ance also num­ber 108, just as the good qual­it­ies of great souls do. The feel­ings too are put at one hun­dred and eight, of which 36 relate to the past, 36 to the present and 36 to the future. Else­where there is talk of man's 54 good and 54 bad qual­it­ies…

Meso­cos­mic – 108 is the product of 9 and 12, and many tra­di­tions regard both of these as hon­oured num­bers. The product of the first, second and third powers of the first three num­bers is also 108 (1¹ × 2² × 3³ = 1 × 4 × 27 = 108). In Indi­an math­em­at­ics 108 is a so-called joy­ful num­ber, one divis­ible by the sum of its own digits. The interi­or angles of the reg­u­lar pentagon also meas­ure 108 degrees. At the prin­cip­al points of the Sri Yan­tra three lines inter­sect. There are 54 such inter­sec­tions in all, and each has a fem­in­ine and a mas­cu­line char­ac­ter, that is, 54 × 2 = 108 points define the Sri Yan­tra. The 54 let­ters of the Sanskrit alpha­bet also have a male and a female side, which togeth­er again make 108, and there are as many Upan­ishads, and as many ini­ti­ation names for ascet­ics.

A curi­os­ity of nat­ur­al his­tory is the extent of the sac­red river Ganges, for this river, 2,500 kilo­metres long, spans 12 degrees of lon­git­ude (between 79° and 91°) and 9 degrees of lat­it­ude (between 22° and 31°), and 12 × 9 is 108. In astro­logy the Moon's sym­bol­ic metal is sil­ver, whose atom­ic weight is 108.

Mac­ro­cos­mic – In astro­logy the product of the 12 houses and the 9 prin­cip­al plan­ets is 108. The seven plan­ets and the two phases of the Moon – 9 in all – mul­ti­plied by the 12 signs of the zodi­ac also give 108, which embraces the whole uni­verse. The sym­bol­ic read­ing of the digits, too, hints at cos­mic vis­tas: 1 is Truth or God, 0 is empty­ing, or the ful­fil­ment of spir­itu­al prac­tices, and 8 is infin­ity or etern­ity.

108 is a ratio found in astro­nomy as well. To a good approx­im­a­tion, even the latest meas­ure­ments con­firm the ancient obser­va­tion that the dia­met­er of the Sun is one hun­dred and eight times the dia­met­er of the Earth, and the Earth–Sun dis­tance one hun­dred and eight times the Sun's dia­met­er. More sur­pris­ing still, the Earth–Moon dis­tance is also one hun­dred and eight times the Moon's dia­met­er!

The Sun and the Moon are also sym­bols of mas­cu­line and fem­in­ine char­ac­ter. The mas­cu­line Spir­it (Pur­usha) and fem­in­ine moth­er nature (Prakriti) cre­ate and sus­tain earthly life in the har­mon­ic vibra­tion of 108: they har­mon­ise the phys­ic­al body and the men­tal con­sti­tu­tion, and cre­ate bal­ance between male and female char­ac­ter. This also guar­an­tees the wise their clear sight.

Spir­itu­al – In Islam the num­ber 108 is a sign of God, among the Jains the many vir­tues of the five orders of saints add up to 108, and the Sikhs tie as many knots in a wool­len cord and count their pray­ers on it. In the Buddhist tra­di­tion, 108 tiny Buddhas are some­times carved on a wal­nut shell, for example, the bell is tolled one hun­dred and eight times to greet the new year, and the 108 vir­tues are prac­tised so as to avoid the 108 faults. In China, strings of one hun­dred and eight pray­er beads are divided by three guide beads into sec­tions of thirty-six beads, and Chinese astro­logy counts 108 sac­red stars. The Chris­ti­an ros­ary con­sists of 54 beads, which is half of 108, and in other tra­di­tions too the string of one hun­dred and eight pray­er beads is known to be divided into halves, thirds, quar­ters or twelfths. Some hold that 108 paths lead to God, and in Hinduism there is talk of 108 deit­ies, each of whom is known by 108 names. The Vish­nu faith has 108 prin­cip­al places of pil­grim­age, 108 temples are revered as espe­cially holy, and Krishna's most devoted fol­low­ers, the cowherd girls, are one hun­dred and eight as well.