Number Symbolism in the Vedas

Abstract

Numbers became very sacred to all cultures since the time man started feeling the need to use numbers in daily life and started observing that the events related to nature/cosmos had a preference for certain numbers. Thus came a stage when mathematics started evolving along with philosophy. All this activity ultimately led to the evolution of the modern ‘numerology’ (science of numbers), the credit for which goes to Pythagoras. During this process, all cultures, independent of each other, had shown preference for certain numbers in their religious beliefs and activities. Similarly, in the Vedas too, one finds numbers such as 1, 3, 7 and 10 as the most used numbers; at least on a few hundred or perhaps even more than a thousand occasions to describe various events. {The other single digit numerals like 4 and 5 etc. are also preferred although to a lesser extent (Murthy, 2003)}. The symbolism associated with the single digit numerals was very well established in virtually all cultures, since counting began on the ten fingers.