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http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/010232.html Quoth Xopher, when willed to speak where what is willed may or may not be:
108 is the sacred number of Hinduism. A Hindu mala is a string of 108 beads (usually with a flag bead, not used in counting) for counting recitations of a mantra; Hindu deities have 108 names; the dance of Shiva Nataraja contains 108 poses. The number is also significant in Tibetan Buddhism, Zen, and Shinto.
Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth for 1 hour, 48 minutes: that's 108 minutes to you and me. I doubt he was doing Japa though, because that would mean each name was a whole minute long! Besides, he was busy.
108 is two squared times three cubed. 108° is the interior measurement of the angles in a regular pentagon. The only regular convex polyhedron with pentagonal faces is the dodecahedron, which has twelve of them. Twelve is also a factor of 108, and a significant number in its own right; twelve Olympian gods, twelve Apostles, twelve hours on an analog clock. 108 hours is about 4.5 days.
Here's Shakespeare's Sonnet 108:
What's in the brain that ink may character
Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit?
What's new to speak, what new to register,
That may express my love or thy dear merit?
Nothing sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,
I must, each day say o'er the very same,
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name.
So that eternal love in love's fresh case
Weighs not the dust and injury of age,
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
But makes antiquity for aye his page,
Finding the first conceit of love there bred
Where time and outward form would show it dead.
Thank you, Xopher. |
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