108 and its Significance

I have always been fascinated by people obsessed with few numbers and letting those numbers dominate their life. I remember one of the richest guy in my locality was obsessed with the number 9, he had fleet of car and some vans and buses all had the same number 9999 or something which sums up to 9. May be I am fascinated with the number themselves than the obsessed people, this fascination guided me into Numerology and related things.

There are few Numbers we come across very often, like 786,666,108, and so on...

I already have dedicated 2 of my posts for 666(Antichrist and Beast and its beauty) , so thought of writing about something else, Number 108, very popular in Oriental religions, like Hinduism , Buddhism, Jainism, etc.

This number as such is mainly cardinal count of Upanishads, or the count of rosary beads in the japamala. Today we will look into the other things regarding this mysterious oriental number.

In Hinduism there are(were actually) two major divisions, shaivism and vaishnavism, this number has been of importance in both the partitions equally. In shaivism, Lord Nataraja(shiva) is the cosmic dancer and according to Natyashastra there are about 108 karanas (karanas are dance units) we can find this relation in the popular Chidambaram temple in TN. For Vaishnavas it is the number of gopis lord Krishna danced with.

It is said that there are 108 marmas (energy points) where the nadis passes through and gives prana, a person is alive because prana flows through these marmas. Marmas can also be imagined as the intersection of ethereal body and the physical body where the prana flows into the living beings. This is in line with the practice of acupuncture, which also talks about 108 pressure points. There are 108 energy lines passing through the Anahata (heart chakra).

Mathematical beauty

1*2*2*3*3*3 = 108

Also

2 sin(108/2) = golden ratio

6*6+6*6+6*6 = 108

108 is said to be the distance between ourself to the inner god and that is the reason yogis do 108 surya namaskara. This is the same reason why mantras are chanted 108 times. For the same reason, the rosary has 108 beads, with each bead we move one step closer to god.

There are 108 pithas (pilgrim centres) in india, just like the 108 energy centres in our body.

There are 108 sacred stars in Chinese astrology. In Indian astrology there are 27 nakshatra which when multiplied with 4 padas (quarters) gives 108. One more interesting thing is there are 12 houses in astrology and 9 planets travel through these houses, the product of these two numbers is also 108.

There are said to be 108 desires and delusions humans have to overcome to have self-realization. There are 54 alphabets in Sanskrit, each having sakthi and shiva part (male and female part with them) which comes to 108. In similar lines there are 54 intersecting points on sri yantra, which again represent male and female, so which again gets the count as 108, after doubling the number 54.

In Indian numerology 1 represents the supreme one, the god etc... 0 represents emptiness and 8 represents infinity or eternal. So 108 represents the universe completely. The diameter of the sun multiplied by the sacred number 108 gives the distance between the sun and earth. This could also be the reason for 108 surya namaskara.

According to Tantra, there are about 21,600 breaths per day, of which 10800 are solar breaths and 10800 are lunar breaths.

In Jainism there are 5 categories of holy men , they have the following numbers of virtues, 12, 8, 36, 25, 27, which sum up to again 108.

So these are some of the places where we find the number 108 in eastern civilization.

why should we be proud of india?

Facts About Ancient India:

• It is the only society in the world which has never known slavery.

• India invented the Number System. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta. The place value system, the decimal system was developed in India in 100 BC.

• The World's first university was established in Takshila in 700 BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda(later destroyed by mogul emperors and we lost most of the scientific knowledge we had) built in the 4th century was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.

• Sanskrit is considered the mother of all higher languages. Sanskrit is the most precise, and therefore suitable language for computer software - a report in Forbes magazine, July 1987.

• Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to humans. Charaka, the father of medicine consolidated Ayurveda 2500 years ago. Today Ayurveda is fast regaining its rightful place in our civilization. It is the only system which takes the holistic view of the person being treated.

• Although modern images of India often show poverty and lack of development, India was the richest country on earth until the time of British in the early 17th Century. Christopher Columbus was attracted by her wealth and was looking for route to India when he discovered American continent by mistake.

• The art of Navigation was born in the river Sindh 6000 years ago. The very word Navigation is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH. The word navy is also derived from Sanskrit 'Nou'.

• Bhaskaracharya calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart. Time taken by earth to orbit the sun: (5th century) 365.258756484 days.

• The value of "pi" was first calculated by Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem. He discovered this in the 6th century long before the European mathematicians.

• Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from India. Quadratic equations were propounded by Sridharacharya in the 11th century. The largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Hindus used numbers as big as 10*53(10 to the power of 53) with specific names as early as 5000 BC during the Vedic period. Even today, the largest used number is Tera: 10*12(10 to the power of 12).

• According to the Gemological Institute of America, up until 1896, India was the only source for diamonds to the world.

• The earliest reservoir and dam for irrigation was built in Saurashtra. According to Saka King Rudradaman I of 150 BC a beautiful lake aptly called 'Sudarshana' was constructed on the hills of Raivataka during Chandragupta Maurya's time.

• Chess (Shataranja or AshtaPada) was reportedly invented in India.

• Sushruta is the father of surgery. 2600 years ago he and health scientists of his time conducted complicated surgeries like cesareans, cataract, artificial limbs, fractures, urinary stones and even plastic surgery and brain surgery.

• Usage of anesthesia was well known in ancient India. Over 125 surgical equipments were used. Detailed knowledge of anatomy, physiology, etiology, embryology, digestion, metabolism, genetics and immunity is also found in many texts.

• When many cultures were only nomadic forest dwellers over 5000 years ago, Indians established Harappan culture in the Sindhu Valley Civilization.

• The name `India’ is derived from the River Indus, the valleys around which were the home of the early settlers. The Aryan worshippers referred to the river Indus as the Sindhu.

• The Persian invaders converted it into Hindu. The name `Hindustan’ combines Sindhu and Hindu and thus refers to the land of the Hindus.

• The World's First Granite Temple is the Brihadeswara temple at Tanjavur in Tamil Nadu. The shikhara is made from a single ' 80-tonne ' piece of granite. Also, this magnificient temple was built in just five years, (between 1004 AD and 1009 AD) during the reign of Rajaraja Chola

• India is.......the Largest democracy in the world, the 6th largest country in the world AND one of the most ancient and living civilizations (at least 10, 000 years old).

• The game of snakes & ladders was created by the 13th century poet saint Gyandev. It was originally called 'Mokshapat.' The ladders in the game represented virtues and the snakes indicated vices. The game was played with cowrie shells and dices. Later through time, the game underwent several modifications but the meaning is the same i.e good deeds take us to heaven and evil to a cycle of re-births.

• The world's highest cricket ground is in Chail, Himachal Pradesh. Built in 1893 after levelling a hilltop, this cricket pitch is 2444 meters above sea level.

• India has the most post offices in the world !

• The largest employer in the world is the Indian railway system, employing over a million people !.

• The Baily Bridge is the highest bridge in the world. It is located in the Ladakh valley between the Dras and Suru rivers in the Himalayan mountains. It was built by the Indian Army in August 1982.

• There is no religion as Hinduism, there was this vedic system of life and people had freedom to choose their own god. This vedic system or sanatana dharma was just a way of life and the name hindu came from the sindhu river, which means people who live beyond river sindhu, so anyone living in India is literally hindu, but now this does not hold any value. We have divided our system to a great extent to be repaired.

• The real name of India(as in satyuga) is Bharat or Bharatvarsha.

And there is the story(was forwarded through emails some 2 yrs back) of Mr.Vaidyaraj an alleged descendant of krishnadevaraya found a couple of diamonds, each one 4600 carats, and is supposedly kept in swiss bank and was taken under cover for security reasons. The worst thing is the cost of this single diamond is way higher than the GDP of America and UK.

A single diamond of it equals 10 times the wealth of bill gates at the time of its discovery (somewhere in 2005 and at that time the property of bill gates valued approximately 95 billion dollars)

This diamond can buy 7 developing nations or a single diamond can clear the debts of Indian debts in world bank three times. Even the world bank has not enough money to buy these diamonds.

The problem with this mail I got is that there is no verifiable data, except that it mentioned that Star tv aired a 115 min documentary about this diamond and hindu had a half page article about this, and since after the news it was classified, surely there is no way to check the authenticity of the news.

Infact India is richer than what meets the eye, there is enough money in the swiss banks under the accounts of indian nationals to provide job for all Indians and raise them above poverty line.

This is a really long list of why should we be proud of being Indians, and many things not added for that would only add to the length of the post and nothing more.

India has a rich past, but what is the use? This past does not help us to curb the poverty or stop the trend of farmer suicides. The Indians feel proud of their heritage and language.. but how many scholars do we have in Sanskrit?

Why are we trying to prove that we were rich and knowledged?

Do we feel inferior to the western culture and their advancement in science and economics?

Yes we do, we feel that we were a great nation and now we were robbed of the greatness, when the Kohinoor was taken away, people were furious, but why? What difference does that makes. Even if we had Kohinoor, we will never sell it and it will have no monetary value.

Now since we are not developed enough in the period of 60yrs of independence, we blame the foreigners, the politicians.

I think its time for us to stop being proud of India and make India proud.

take care

blessed be