The Human Body as Microcosm in India, Greek Cosmology, And Sixteenth-Century Europe Alex Wayman
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Alex Wayman THE HUMAN BODY AS
MICROCOSM IN INDIA,
GREEK COSMOLOGY,
AND SIXTEENTH-
CENTURY EUROPE
The fascinating topic of the analogy of the human body with the
cosmos overlaps a number of cultures, older and newer; and I believeit possible to treat this matter comparatively by way of an underlying
symbolic continuum-the human body itself. Much is written on
these matters; and that I use certain works is due to the happycircumstance that they are in my personal library and so facilitate the
present study. In addition, some of my own published writings on the
Buddhist Tantras bear upon the topic. I propose to deal with thetopic in four parts: first the problem; second the way in which the
matter is developed in India and in Greek cosmology; third the views
of sixteenth-century Europe; and, finally, geometry and number
symbolism relating to man.
THE PROBLEM
In the West many persons are aware of the problem entailed in the
biblical text that "God created man in his own image," for werecognize that man is limited. Is God therefore also limited? The
theological reply, of course, is that God is not limited. How then is
man an image of God?In India the problem arose with the Upanisadic text, "Thou are
that" (tat tvam asi), implying that man in his phenomenal self is
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History of Religions
equivalent to the Lord of the universe. But Sankara, the celebratedfounder of the Advaita Vedanta, in his commentary on the Vedanta
Sutras pointed out that if this atman (self) that is one with theBrahman were the self of man, then man would have made themountains and rivers; but he did not; it was the Lord who madethem.' Then why did the Upanisad say, "Thou art that," and say thatthis atman in the heart is one with the Brahman (spirit of the
universe)?
Turning to Greek cosmology, Plato's Philebus pushes the analogythrough Socrates. He voices the thesis that the elements in man's
body are derived from elements in the body of the cosmos; whateverman has, the cosmos must also have; and Socrates asks, "Whencecana human body have received its soul, if the body of the universe doesnot possess a soul?"2 Now, that tradition agrees, man is differentfrom the universe because, aside from the attributed immortal part,he dies and his body is dissolved back into the elements. We cannot
say that the universe, aside from the attributed immortal part, diesand its elements dissolve into something else.
Modern physics has encountered a related problem. That is, Ein-
stein's theory of relativity is more and more confirmed for the verylarge, the realm of the certain; and quantum mechanics, disagreeingwith relativity, is regarded as correct for the very small, the realm ofthe possible and probable.3 But there is no unified theory that worksfor both. Are there, in fact, two universes with mutually incompatiblerules, although mysteriously they have much in common?
The problem is stated in terms of distance when man is consideredas a microcosm in astrological terms. The commonest challenge to
astrology is that it does not demonstrate how the planets, being so faraway, can influence the body and mind in the way that astrologyclaims they do, in asserting that the twelve zodiacal signs affectdifferent parts of the body. But that is the same challenge that wasmade to Newton when he announced his principle of gravity, claimingthat the sun and moon, exerting gravity on the equatorial bulge of theearth, produce the phenomenon of the precession of the axis of theearth. For, his opponent asked, by what medium was this so-called
gravitytransmitted?
I The Veddnta Sitras of Bddardyana with the Commentary by Sankara, trans.George Thibaut, pt. 2 (New York: Dover Publications, 1962), p. 97.
2 David E. Hahm, The Origins of Stoic Cosmology (Columbus: Ohio State Univer-sity Press, 1977), p. 138.
3 A fine statement of this is given by Erwin Schrodinger, What Is Life? The PhysicalAspect of the Living Cell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; New York:Macmillan, 1946), chap. 4, "The Quantum-Mechanical Evidence," showing the connec-tion with life, what I call the "possible and probable," while it is the nonliving that is"certain."
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The Human Body as Microcosm
THE MICROCOSM-MACROCOSM NALOGY IN INDIA AND IN
GREEKCOSMOLOGY
It seems proper first to mention some maxims about the microcosm-
macrocosm pair from several traditions. The most celebrated maximis taken from the ancient hermetic Emerald Table:"The thing that ison high is like the thing that is below."4 So if one knows man, oneknows the universe; and vice versa. A Sanskrit text in the area of
Buddhist tantra contains the line: yatha bdhyam tatha 'dhydtmamiti
("As without, so within"). As an example from this type of literature,those designs called mandalas are conceived in the mind, and their
reflected image is drawn outside in conformity.5 One implication ofthe hermetic axiom is that the macrocosm is reached or understood
by going upward; hence, in the human body, one moves toward the
head or face. The Indian axiom representsthe situation that prevailedfrom the Upanisadic period, when it was held that truth is reached by
going within, especially within the heart. The Indians also had a
system wherein the upper was better than the lower.
The sages of India frequently employed systematic analogies, start-
ing in their Vedas, preeminently in the celebrated Purusa hymn.6Theword "purusa"means "person"-here the cosmic person. The hymn
says: "When the gods performed a sacrifice with Purusa the oblation,its melted butter was Spring, the fuel was Summer, the oblation was
Autumn." Also, "the Brahman was his mouth, his two arms made the
warrior, his two thighs what is the Vaisya [merchant class]. From his
two feet the Siudrawas born." Again, "the moon was born from his
mind; from his eye the sun was born." And so on. Before evaluatingsome of these remarks, let us note the Orphic verses frequently cited
by the Neoplatonists: "Zeus is first and last, one royal body, contain-
ing fire, water, earth, and air, night and day, Metis and Eros. The skyis his head, the stars his hair, the sun and moon his eyes, the air his
intelligence [nous], whereby he hears and marks all things."7The Indian myth is noteworthy for containing a sliding scale of
values for relating parts of the great person to the four castes or
classes of India, the Brahmin class getting the best part-the head,
or, rather, the mouthpiece-that class being the spokesman for the
gods. The warriors, later called the Ksatriya, or ruling class, werelower down, the two arms. One slides down to the thighs for the
4 See Grillot de Givry, Witchcraft, Magic and Alchemy, trans. J. Courtenay Locke
([New York:] Frederick Publications, 1954), p. 240.5 A. Wayman, Yoga of the Guhyasamajatantra (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1977),
p. 62.6 Rg Veda 10.90.7 Francis M. Cornford, Plato's Cosmology (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1957),
p. 55.
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History of Religions
merchant class, which handles money; and the lowest class, theSidra, downtrodden, is allotted the feet. But when the Upanisads ofIndia were composed, an opposition arose to the sliding scale. Theheart was selected as the location of the great self (atman), said to beone with the spirit of the world, the Brahman. Still later, Patanijali'sYogasutras taught that the navel was the central place.8 The headcontinued to be the chief of the five members (including the arms and
feet) in Buddhist works; and the Indian practice of bowing the headto the feet of the honored person implies that his feet (the lowest part)are as good as the head (the highest part) of the disciple. The human
body was considered in India an assemblage of "members"(ariga),and this word "member"(aniga)came to be used for the body itself.Barkan points out that when we use the word "members" n the senseof persons with a defined role in a group, we do not see legs and
arms, and yet these bodily members were the source of the idea bymetaphorical extension.9
While the sliding scale of excellence continued in India, the rival
systems would gradually bring about a viewpoint that the individual
parts,or
members,were of
equalvalue.
This may have happenedafter the Greek form of the zodiac was introduced into India aroundthe beginning of our era. The astrological manual Brhatjdtaka ofVarahamihira (ca. A.D.600) has the theory of the Kalapurusa (TimePerson) who is made up of the twelve zodiacal signs. This means the
"tropical year" defined by return to seasonal characteristics-say, the
equinox or solstice-rather than by return to a fixed point in the sky.In this treatise, the signs govern respectively twelve parts of thehuman body, just as is shown in the illustration (Kalendrier des
Bergiers) of the sixteenth-century European counterpart.1?This is atheory that a temporal order is translatable into a spatial ordering. Inthe illustration, the spatial ordering is indicated by the French wordconvenance (or an old spelling, covenance), of which more later.
The Upanisad called Mdndukya allows the cosmic person to havegeneralized states of man's consciousness (i.e., waking, dream, dream-less sleep, and a theoretical fourth state). The Brahmopanisad, one ofthe Samnyasa Upanisads, later than the early Upanisads but preceding
8 Yoga-sutras 3.30: "[By the yogi's concentration called samyama] on the navel-circle, [comes] the knowledge of the arrangement of the body."
9 Leonard Barkan, Nature's Work of Art: The Human Body as Image of the World(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1977), p. 65.
10Greco-Roman astrology is the source both of the Indian conception of the timeperson (Brhatjataka, chap. 1, verse 4) and of the Western counterpart in KalendrierdesBergiers; see also A. Bouche-Leclerq, L'Astrologie grecque (Paris, 1899; reprint ed.,Brussels, 1963), p. 319.
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The Human Body as Microcosm
the tantric literature of India, also translates those states into cor-
poreal places, teaching that the Purusa has the waking state in the
navel, sleep (i.e., dream) in the neck (or throat), dreamless sleep in theheart, and the fourth, Turiya, in the head. In a tantric passage, theunion of the white male and red female elements takes place in thehead. "
Turning to Plato's Timaeus, Cornford summarizes: "The visibleuniverse is a living creature, having soul (psyche) in body and reason
(nous) in soul.... Man is also composed of reason, soul, and body;but his body will be dissolved back into the elements, and the two
lower parts of his soul are also mortal. Only the divine reason in himis imperishable. There is thus a contrast between macrocosm and
microcosm, but also an analogy, which runs through the discourse."12Onians shows that this psyche was located by the Greeks principally
in the head.13 One takes an oath by nodding one's head. Also, the
goddess Praxidike ("exacter of justice"-an epithet of Persephone),who was represented by just a head sticking out of the ground, was
sworn to with nodding of the head;14 she was associated with the sign
of Gemini,'s governing the shoulders and arms. Onians notes thatto
throw the head back in refusal would mean a withdrawal of the
psyche.16 Since the psyche is the life-soul, the genital organs-considered autonomous, independent of the will-were regarded asthe organs of the psyche.17 Hence in ithyphallic representation of
Hermes, the sculptor depicts just the Hermes head and the erect
phallus as though on a monolithic slab.18 Furthermore, Onians,
appealing to the Timaeus of Plato, states that the part of the psychethat survives death is in the head, and this is called the daimon; while
the mortal part of the soul (psyche) partaking of such qualities ascourage "resides in the chest above the diaphragm [i.e., where the
lungs and heart are] and the baser or appetitive part between the
diaphragm and the navel."19This explains the terminology, "the two
1 Wayman, p. 66.12Cornford, p. 38.13Richard Broxton Onians, The Origins of European Thought about the Body, the
Mind, the Soul, the World, Time, and Fate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1954), p. 95.14Ibid., p. 138.15 Praxidike is the name of the third decanate of Gemini in the list attributed to
Kosmas of Jerusalem; see Wilhelm Gundel, Dekane und Dekan-Sternbilder (1936),
p. 81.16 Onians, pp. 109-lOn.17 Ibid., p. 146n.18 C. G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy (New York: Pantheon Books, 1953), p. 126,
fig. 63.19Onians, pp. 118-19.
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History of Religions
lower parts of the soul." Notice that this also involves the sliding scaleof excellence, with the best part, immortal, in the head, and twolower parts of the psyche above and below the diaphragm.
But how are we to understand the analogy of the cosmos to man?Hahm claims that Zeno, although starting his cosmology with
Aristotle, had to turn to Plato to implement the Stoic idea of "thecosmos as a living, ensouled animal":20 "Plato had made a self-
moving world-soul responsible for all movement in the cosmos."2'Aristotle rejected this theory; but Theophrastus, disagreeing with
Aristotle, "argued that if the heavenly bodies are capable of desire,
they must also possess soul and therefore psychic movement orchange."22This is reminiscent of the Creation Hymn of the Rgveda,where "desire," firstborn, is the bond of existence in nonexistence.23Burkert mentions Plato's theory that circular motion is the kind ofmovement closest to nous (divine reason).24
Cornford, analyzing the Timaeus, asserts that the world-soul "con-sists of certain intermediate kinds of Existence, Sameness, and Dif-ference."Again, "on the principlethat like knows like, the compositionof the World-Soul out of
three elements, Existence, Sameness, andDifference, enables it both to know unchangeable real objects and tohave true beliefs about changing things of the lower order of
existence,"25God made the self-moving soul prior to the body;26the
"bodily" belongs to the perceptible lower order of existence which is
"always becoming, but never has real being."27Now, while the world-soul and all individual souls consist of existence, sameness, anddifference, it should be recognized that by "existence" is meant thatmotion exists.28 Hence the self-moving nature of soul is its existence.
Then the soul can make judgments about "same" and "different"because it is itself the same and the different29 since like knows like.
This terminology of the "same" and the "different" goes withPlato's theory of the world of pregenetic ideas. Thus, a phenomenonor an object in the created world is an imitation of a form or idea.Sukla points out that all imitations, whether accurate or inaccurate,
20 Hahm, pp. 136-83 (see n. 2 above).21 Ibid., p. 139.
22 Ibid.23 RgVeda10.129.24 Walter Burkert, Weisheitund Wissenschaft:Studien zu Pythagoras, Philolaos und
Platon, trans. Edwin L. Minar, Jr., as Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972), p. 326.
25Cornford, pp. 57-58.26 Ibid.,p. 59.27 Ibid.,p. 62.28 Ibid.,pp. 62-63.29 Ibid., p. 65.
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The Human Body as Microcosm
are inferior to their original, the pregenetic form. However, a correct
imitation necessarily involves the knowledge of the original. It is the
soul that has this knowledge, that is, knowledge of the Same and theDifferent.30
Correct imitation is essential to Plato's theory of beauty. On this
point Herbert Read cites Plato's Phaedrus. Anyone who "beholds in
any godlike face or form a successful copy of original beauty, first of
all feels a shuddering chill ... as he continues to gaze, he is inspiredwith a reverential awe.... Afterwards follow the natural results of
his chill, a sudden change, a sweating and glow of unwonted heat.
For he has received through his eyes the emanation of beauty, andhas been warmed thereby, and his native plumage is watered ... for
in old time the soul was entirely feathered."3'Of course, for Plato the
soul is the bird-soul, self-moving.32 In Egypt, too, there is the
representation of the soul as a human-headed bird.33 n India, a Vedic
hymn refers to two birds,34which the later Upanisadic period inter-
preted as a higher and lower self.35 Presumably these are the two
kinds of minds (manas) alluded to in the AnugTta part of the
Mahdbhdrata;but in contrast to Plato's
self-moving soul,the
AnugTtatakes the higher mind as the stationary (sthdvara) one, which is the
mind of the lord Prajapati, while the lower mind is the moving
(jangama) one.36This may pertain to yoga, which attempts to restrain
the movement of the mind. On the other hand, the Buddhist genesis
story holds that the men of the first eon had a body made of mind
(manomaya); they were self-luminous, fed on joy, and went where
they wished;37this Buddhist account appears more compatible with
Plato's theory of soul.
The Upanisadic texts of India placed the immortal soul, calleddtman, in the heart, where Plato placed a mortal part of the psyche,
possessing a special attribute of courage; while, as we saw, Plato
30 Ananta Charana Sukla, The Concept of Imitation in Greek and Indian Aesthetics
(Calcutta: Rupa & Co., 1977), p. 61.31 Herbert Read, Icon and Idea (New York: Schocken Books, 1965), pp. 84-85.32Jane Ellen Harrison, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion
(Cleveland: Meridian Books, 1962), has a number of references to birds; and especiallyto the bird-robe of the Egyptian goddess Isis-Nephthys, pp. 110-11.
33 See E. A. Wallis Budge, Egyptian Magic (New York: Dover Publications, n.d.),p. 115.
34 Rg Veda 1.164.20.35Hence Vasudeva S. Agrawala's interpretation of the verse in his The Thousand-
syllabled Speech, I, Vision in Long Darkness (Varanasi, 1963), pp. 74-76.36 See the discussion of this matter in A. Wayman, "The Significance of Mantras,
from the Veda down to Buddhist Tantric Practice," Indologica Taurinensia3-4 (Turin,1975-76 [1977]): 483-97, esp. 484.
37 See A. Wayman, The Buddhist Tantras (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1973),
chap. 3, "Buddhist Genesis and the Tantric Tradition."
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History of Religions
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FIG. 1.-Page from Kalendrier des Bergiers, French A.D. 1500. (CourtesyNew York Public Library, Spencer Collection.)
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The Human Body as Microcosm
assigned the immortal part of the psyche, the daimon, or the nous
(divine reason), to the head. Although this atman-placement is the
one most commonly known in India, an alternate tradition, less oftenrecognized, appears in the Sanatsujadtya of the Mahabharata):"Some
say otherwise, to wit, Yama is death, who dwells in the self (atman),who is the immortal pure life." The comment by the Indian authorSankara shows that the reference is to the heart.38 This alternateIndian tradition, placing in the heart a kind of clock-measure of life
length-amounting to a death prophecy-accords more closely withthe Greek theory which places there a mortal portion of the soul.
THE SIXTEENTHCENTURY
Early in the sixteenth century, the Kalendrier des Bergiers appearedin a number of editions in France, especially around A.D. 1520,39 he
year after Leonardo da Vinci died in Italy. Bergier means "shepherd"and in Old French came to designate a foolish person; the title thus
suggests a club or society calling itself the "simple-minded shepherds."But shepherds are well known to have watched the stars at night
while tending their flocks; and the title of the work Poemander,attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, seems to mean "shepherd of
men." Thus the "shepherds"may have been amateur astronomers or
astrologers.In analyzing this work, it will be useful to refer to four kinds of
similitudes current in Western culture up through the end of the
sixteenth century, which are "convenience," "emulation," "analogy,"and "sympathy."40
1. The first kind of similitude, "convenience,"is the convenance (or
covenance) mentioned in the astrological text Kalendrierdes Bergiers.It is the convenient juxtaposition of the twelve zodiacal spheres of
influence in the body, as in figure 1. Their assigned adjacency or
propinquity in space renders the human body a microcosm. This is a
frequent design in nature-the packing together of like forms, such as
the kernels of corn on the cob or the units of honeycombs. In the
zodiac it takes the forms of equal measure.
2. The second kind of similitude is also a sort of "convenience,"
namely, "emulation," able to operate at a distance. This is shown in38 SanatsujatTya,with Sankara's and NTlakantha'scommentaries, Haridas Sanskrit
Series (Benares, 1924), 1st adhydya, verse 6a-b, with Sankara's comment at p. 18.39 Bibliographical information for this work, Le Grant Kalendrier et compost des
Bergiers avecq leur Astrologie, etc., appears in the catalogs of the U.S. Library of
Congress. My copy is the reprint, without date or explanatory introduction, byEditions Siloe, Paris.
40 Michel Foucault, Les Mots et les choses, trans. as The Order of Things (NewYork: Vintage Books, 1973), pp. 17 ff.
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History of Religions
the illustration by the face, two arms with hands holding flowerstems, and the two feet with ten toes. The face is said to emulate or
imitate the sky without proximity to the sky. According to Enel'sFrench cabbalistic work, man is the reflection of the sky (astrologicalcorrespondences); the ideal man is the reflection of angelic qualities;the "finished" man is the image of God at the end of the "sixth
day. ,41
3. The third kind of similitude is "analogy." Foucault gives the
example, "the seven orifices in his head are to his face what the seven
planets are to the sky."42Below I shall furnish more illustrations of
this "analogy."4. The fourth similitude is called "sympathy,"which moves irresis-
tibly toward identity with the same (recall Plato's "same" and "dif-
ferent"). It is counterbalanced by the force of antipathy, which
preserves the "different." The "sympathy-antipathy" pair maintainsthe integrity of the first three kinds of similitude. Thus, for the twelvezodiacal influences in the body, the pair keeps them close together("sympathy") and keeps them distinctly apart ("antipathy"). FrancesYates cites a
passagefrom the
sixteenth-century philosopherGiordano
Bruno which sheds light on the concept of sympathy: "All things ofnature and in nature, like soldiers in an army, follow leaders assignedto them.... This Anaxagoras knew very well but Father Aristotlecould not attain to it ... with his impossible and fictitious logicalsegregations of the truth of things."43 Apparently this theory ofsimilitudes is essentially anti-Aristotelian.
The term "signatures" in connection with the four kinds of simili-tudes needs explanation.44 If indeed there are these various kinds of
similitude, there must be some way to know them. It was held thatnature makes each object knowable by "signs." According to JacobBoehme, the sixteenth-century Protestant mystic, when the othersimilitude enters into one's own similitude, then one understands bythe signature-one's innate genuine form.45That is to say, one findsthe same thing in oneself, a duplicate of the other; and then oneunderstands.
As Boehme says of the "same" in his early book, Aurora, "Under-
stand it magically: For it is a mirror, looking-glass, or similitude of
41 Enel, Trilogie de la rota ou roue celeste (Lyon: Paul Derain, n.d.), p. 301.42 Foucault, p. 22.43 Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1966), p. 252.44Foucault, pp. 25-30.45 Jacob Boehme, The Signature of All Things, Everyman's Library, no. 569 (reprint
ed., New York, 1934), chap. 1, pp. 9-12.
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The Human Body as Microcosm
the eternal 'world'."46Ghyka cites the Pythagorean precept from theHieros Logos: "You will know, as far as it is allowed to a mortal, that
Nature is from all points of view similar to itself."47This preceptassumes nature to be isotropic (identical everywhere) and disregardsits asymmetric side, necessary for the growth and decay of living
organisms. The Mahayana Buddhists also talked often about the
vision of sameness (samata) of all natures (dharma) in their Gan-
.davyuhascripture, and in the sixth stage of the Ten-Stage Scripture(called in Sanskrit Dasabhimika-satra), a vision of all the different
things somehow the same. Sartre illustrates this with an anecdote
about the time when he came to a popular cafe late for his appoint-ment with a certain Pierre. As Sartre looked about anxiously, not
finding Pierre in the crowded cafe, everyone there was the same-not
Pierre!48 So an asymmetric person sees isotropic nature. In other
words, it takes a different sort of person to have the vision of
sameness.The human-body microcosm in the sixteenth century involves both
these systems of rich resemblances and a theory of immanence in
terms of these resemblances. Boehme works out theanalogy
in
Aurora pursuant to the biblical precept (Gen. 1:27):"For a similitude
or example take man, who is made after the image or similitude of
God." Summarizing his analogy in Aurora: (1) The whole body with
all its parts signifies heaven and earth. (2) The interior ("hollowness")in man's body signifies the deep between the stars and the earth.
Within this interior, the heart is the fire; the blood, together with the
liver, is the water; the breath within the windpipe and arteries is the
air; and these three elements-fire, water, air-qualify the deep.
(3) The flesh, together with the lungs, signifies the earth. (4) The veinsmean the powerful outflow from the stars, and are where the stars
impress their influence upon men. (5) The entrails signify the consum-
ing of all which is in the power of the stars. (6) The hands signifyGod's omnipotence, since man makes with his hands what he pleases.
(7) The feet signify that near and far are one in God; let his feet take
him near or far off-in nature he is neither near nor far off. (8) The
head signifies heaven.49
However, when Boehme wrote his masterpiece, Mysterium Mag-num, a mystical reinterpretation of the Genesis myth, he advanced
beyond what he said in Aurora (which was itself probably a borrowing46 Jacob Boehme, TheAurora (reprinted., London: John M. Watkins, 1960), p. 143.47 Matila Ghyka, The Geometry of Art and Life (New York: Dover Publications,
1977), p. 115.48 Jean Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness (New York: Philosophical Library,
1956), pp. 9-10.49 Boehme, Aurora, pp. 56 ff.
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History of Religions
of previous attempts to spell out the details of the human bodymicrocosm). Now he claimed that the biblical text that "God created
man in his own image" means creating a twofold body, spiritual andcorporeal, and that the spiritual body is the "image,"not the corporealone, which is formed of the four elements and the visible stars.50Thisis Boehme's solution to the problem I announced in the beginning,the logical difficulty in taking man's physical body to be the image ofGod. Granted that the physical body can be explained by parts thatare analogical to the cosmos as stated in the Aurora, thus constitutinga microcosm; yet for Boehme it is not an image of God. As to this
spiritual body, Boehme teaches that Adam, before his first fall, wasstill an "image" of God, his body indestructible, not subject to heat,cold, sickness, accident, or fear. In this condition, the inward manheld the outward captive, rendering the outer body as though on fire.
Employing the alchemical language of his day, Boehme takes the
spiritual body as having a fiery luminosity; and he holds that whenthis fire goes out, the outer holds the inner captive.5'
GEOMETRYAND NUMBER SYMBOLISMOF MAN
The sixteenth century saw a revival of the old Vitruvian plan oftheater design as well as of his figure of a man inscribed in a squarewithin a circle.52 Yates mentions that the normal Vitruvian theaterhad seven gangways which divide the seats and five decorated doorsin the back of the stage for the actors to enter and leave.53These
numbers, seven and five, add up to the twelve signs of the circular
zodiac, enclosing four inscribed triangles (the trigone) to representtheelement trines. These trines, known from Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos, are
the 120-degree zodiacal signs for each element among the fourelements (e.g., for fire, Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius). This is reflected,in the illustration from Kalendrier des Bergiers, in the word trois. AsRudolf Wittkower writes: "Invigorated by the Christian belief thatMan as the image of God embodied the harmonies of the Universe,the Vitruvian figure inscribed in a square and a circle became a
symbol of the mathematic sympathy between microcosm and macro-cosm. "54 The figures of the human body in microcosm-macrocosm
50 Jacob Boehme, Mysterium Magnum, trans. John Sparrow (London: John M.Watkins, 1965), 15:10-13, pp. 82-83.
51I have worked this out in my study, "Male, Female, and Androgyne, per BuddhistTantra, Jacob Boehme, and the Greek and Taoist Mysteries," in Tantric and TaoistStudies in Honour of R. A. Stein (Brussels, 1982), 1:393-432.
52 Yates, pp. 170-71.53Ibid., pp. 136-37, 356.54Cited by Yates in ibid., p. 359.
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The Human Body as Microcosm
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FIG. 2. Macrocosm-microcosm. Robert Fludd, title page, Utriusquecosmi historia. (Courtesy British Library.)
184
?;?s
h
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History of Religions
relation most frequently reproduced are those of Robert Fludd
(seventeenth century), such as the one in figure 2. In this one, the
right foot is in Leo, the left in Libra; the right hand is in Gemini, theleft in Capricorn; and the head is at the Pisces-Aries cusp. The fiveclassical planets are said to rule these signs. Thus, for the Pisces-Aries
cusp, Jupiter and Mars; for Capricorn, Saturn; for Gemini, Mercury;for Libra, Venus. In addition, Leo is ruled by the Sun; and none ofthe five members is in Cancer, ruled by the Moon. Fludd shows theSun and Moon above, along with the other planets, in the macrocosm;man, of course, is in the microcosm. The fact that man has these fivechief members, so placed in correspondence, led to the pentagrambecoming adopted as the special symbol of man as microcosm. It isreasonable to conclude that Vitruvius alloted five doors for the actorsto use as entrances and exits with this pentad of human members inmind. The seven gangways probably symbolized the seven planets.
It is noteworthy that all the representations of the Vitruvian man,the problem of "squaring the circle" (such as Leonardo da Vinci's
attempt, shown in fig. 3), use the male body. This is not out of
squeamishness at depicting the female body, for Clark points out
"that forest of nude figures, painted or carved, in stucco, bronze, orstone, which filled every vacant space in the architecture of thesixteenth century."55The reason for the male as the Vitruvian man is,I believe, that the posture of spreading out the legs and arms in themale figure symbolizes surrender of the microcosm to the macrocosm.A female body in such posture would not serve, since it could beconstrued as surrender to the male and not surrender to themacrocosm.56
Now, since the number 5 is accepted as symbolizing man (ofcourse, both male and female), it is clear that while it can be taken as3 + 2, in our present context it must be taken as 4 + 1, wherethe two arms and two legs give the number 4, and the head-asthe number 1 serves as the fifth. In ancient Greece, according toBurkert, "A girl has four years to herself after she reaches puberty[technically, menarche], and her marriage is to take place in thefifth."57 The symbolism is unmistakable: she marries in the fifth,which among members is the head, where the Greeks put the seed ofnew life. So, too, in the Buddhist tantras the union of the male andfemale elements is in the head, although the commonsense view isthat such a union takes place with the male and female genitals. Still,
55Kenneth Clark, The Nude (New York: Pantheon Books, 1957), p. 27.56 C. G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy (see n. 18 above), p. 181, fig. 91, "Anima
Mundi," shows a typical representation of the female nude-feet together. See alsoGhyka, The Geometry of Art and Life, p. 152, pl. 66, "Harmonic Analysis of aRenaissance Painting."
57 Burkert (see n. 24 above), p. 476.
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The Human Body as Microcosm
FIG. 3.-Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian man. (Courtesy Academy of
Venice.)
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History of Religions
everyone will grant that marriage vows are taken with the head, andthis head is imbued with Aries, the beginning of spring, which helpsexplain why the zodiac begins with Aries. (Yet Schumaker takesPontano to task for explaining the zodiac as beginning with Ariesbecause it is the time of birth.58) In Robert Fludd's version ofVitruvian man, the head is at the cusp of Pisces-Aries, that is, at thevernal equinox. This spring equinox is also reflected, in the beliefs ofthe Han Dynasty in China, as the time when the yin (female element)and yang (male element) have intercourse;and Bodde translates, "So
by consummating the rite of marriage then, conformity is maintained
with the seasons of Heaven."59The Greek marriage was there (head)rather than then (vernal equinox).
Pythagorean number symbolism, which was accepted by Plato,
assigned the decad, or 10, as the number of the macrocosm, alongwith a corresponding geometrical shape, the decagon. The microcosm,as was noticed above, has the number 5; its geometrical shape isthe pentagon, while the pentagram was adopted as the symbol of manin magical lore.60The number 10 was not only the sum of the firstfour
integers, 1, 2, 3, 4;but also the ten
dots piled up in the fourlayers of the triangular Pythagorean tetraktys. The Pythagoreans, likethe Indians, associated other entities with numbers, but there is noindication of mutual influence. The Indians used conventional termsfor numbers, such as mukha (face) for 1, aksi (eyes) for 2, and soon.61The Pythagoreans, then Plato, took the numbers themselves as
symbols; thus 1 is a point, 2 a line, 3 a plane, and 4 a solid. Aristotle
reported that 3 is the male number, 4 the female number.62This is notobvious from Burkert'ssummary from Pythagorean sources, where 3
is the number of the whole, namely, beginning, middle, and end; andwhere 4 is justice, equal times equal.63The number that unites themale and female numbers in marriage is not 3 + 4 = 7, but the nextnatural number, 5. Burkert found an explanation for this 5 as 2 + 3,the first even number with the next odd number,64which in effectleaves the male with number 3 and replaces the female 4 with 2. But Ihave found no explanation of the number 5 whereby the female
58 Wayne Schumaker, The Occult Sciences in the Renaissance (Berkeley and LosAngeles: University of California Press, 1973), p. 33.
59Derk Bodde, Festivals in Classical China (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UniversityPress, 1975), p. 245.
60Ghyka, pp. 114-15.61 Sakaladhikara of Sage Agastya, ed. and trans. into English by V. Gopala lyengar,
Tanjore Sarasvati Mahal Series no. 141 (Thanjavur, 1973), appendices, p. 37.62Burkert, p. 429.63 Ibid.,p. 467.64 Ibid.
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The Human Body as Microcosm
would keep her number 4 and the male's 3 would be replaced bynumber 1.
Now may 1 try to explain the symbolism of Leonardo da Vinci's"Vitruvian man" as the microcosm-macrocosm. Since the Vitruvian
figure is within both a square and a circle, each of these must be
treated. Pythagoreanism accepted the circle and the sphere as the
most beautiful shapes.65The Timaeus takes the rounded figure as the
most perfect one,66and the square is itself an ideal form in Pythagore-anism, where it contrasts with all oblong figures,67 including the
rectangle which would have afforded no trouble for inscribing the
male figure. According to the Greek Theon, the original arithmeticaltetraktys (1, 2, 3, 4) is the series point, line, surface (i.e., triangle),solid (i.e., pyramid). Theon also interpreted the tetraktys by a geo-metrical progression, whose terms representthe point, line (i.e., linear
measure), surface (i.e., square), solid (i.e., cube).68This shows that the
third term in the arithmetical progression, the number 3, is the
triangle; while the third term in the geometrical progression is the
square. Cornford mentions that the best figures are the regular solids
that have theequilateral triangle
or thesquare
for their faces,69hence
gems. For Plato's procedure of building up all the four element solids
with two triangles, one primitive triangle is the right-handed scalene
triangle (two of them) formed by dropping the perpendicular from
any angle of the equilateral triangle;and the other primitive one is the
isosceles triangle (two of them) made by a diagonal in a square. So
the square in the circle becomes two isosceles triangles. Besides, the
foregoing considerations show that both the circle and the square can
be interpretedas the macrocosm because they are the ideal forms.
Turning to da Vinci's figure, we can observe a consistency withVitruvian measurements as Panofsky gives them, namely, that the
erect body, arms outspread, fits into a square; spreadeagled, it fits
into a circle whose center is the navel.70In contrast, when we draw
the diagonal in da Vinci's square, thus making two isosceles triangles,the line passes through the man's genitals at the crotch; the center of
the square is the crotch. We may also relate the circle-oriented
posture to the square in that the little finger just touches the diagonal
and in that the two fingers next to the thumb touch the upper side of65 Ibid.,p. 171.66 Cornford, p. 54 (see n. 7 above).67 Burkert, p. 51.68Cornford, p. 70.69 Ibid., p. 221.70 Erwin Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday
Anchor Books, 1955), chap. 2, "The History of the Theory of Human Proportions as a
Reflection of the History of Styles," p. 67n.
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the square. The bending of the left foot to exhibit its full length goeswith its use as a measurement. Vitruvius took the foot as one-sixth of
the total body length.71However, Leonardo's foot seems rather to beone-fourth the distance from the crotch to the foot sole. RecallingBoehme's statement in the Aurora that the feet take one near and far,the left foot, serving as a measure, would symbolize the "near";whilethe right foot, pointing straight ahead, would symbolize the "far."However, Fludd shows the full length of the right foot.
The contrast of navel (circle-oriented) and crotch (square-oriented)may serve as the basis for further comparisons.72 For example, the
Buddhist mandala has an outer circle (the "fire mountain") consti-tuting the outer border of the sacred space containing the squarepalace representing the perfection of man's nature. It is based on thewithin-without analogy. The circle of the palace radiates out to the
bounding circle, so that it constitutes a nave and goes with such amicrocosm-macrocosm design as the spreadeagled Vitruvian man.
The sixteenth century saw complex writings with loose syncretismsof essentially alien systems, such as the Greek cosmology, the Greco-Roman
astrology,alchemical
lore,and the biblical
orientation ofChristendom. As to that century's search for the "why"of life, I knowof Boehme's solution, as mentioned, that God created a twofold
body, with the spiritual body constituting "his own image," not the
corporeal one that the astrologers deal with while claiming influence("emulation") from the stars and planets far off. The sixteenth
century's theories of similitudes disappeared with the new science andits wondrous triumphs ushering in the times of horrors. But perhaps
71 Ibid., p. 95.72 This gets us into the realm of speculation, namely, that the circle is solar and the
square is lunar in symbolism. That the circle is here the solar one is suggested byFludd's figure, with members in signs of the classical planets and the right foot in Leo,ruled by the sun, but with no member in Cancer, ruled by the moon. That the square islunar is easy to show with data from the Orient, but not in Western terms, since thesystem of twenty-eight asterisms or houses of the moon has not been a feature ofWestern astrology. That the number 28 is commensurate with a square is shown inC. P. S. Menon, Early Astronomy and Cosmology (London: George Allen & Unwin,1932), chap. 2, "Rectangular Enclosures," where the formula 82 - 62 = 28 allows fortwenty-eight small squares arranged along the sides of a square. See, e.g., Edward H.
Schafer, Pacing the Void: T'ang Approaches to the Stars (Berkeley and Los Angeles:University of California Press, 1977), p. 81, fig. 2, "The twenty-eight lunar lodgings(from a Turfan tomb roof)," where the "lunar lodgings" are arranged in a square. Incontrast, when in India it is desired to combine lunar with solar readings forastrological purposes, the number of asterisms is taken as twenty-seven, because this iscommensurate with twelve zodiacal signs, by the equation 12 X 9 = 27 X 4; as inVarahamihira's Brhat Jataka. But ancient India also had the twenty-eight-asterismsystem for lunar readings independent of apparent solar motion. Thus, this sort ofspeculation would take the circle with navel as center to be solar oriented and thesquare with sexual crotch as center to be lunar oriented.
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190 The Human Body as Microcosm
the microcosm man has always been subject to these times, and thatis why he needs a macrocosm as something to pray to.
Columbia University