The Pythagorean System
Pythagoras (560-480 B.C.) was born on the isle of Samos fo the coast of Asia Minor. This area south of Troy was called Ionia which included the coast of Asia Minor and the islands of Lesbos, Samos, and Cos. His family was of pre-Hellenic Pelasgian Mediterranean origin and Pythagoras was ordained as the High Priest of the ancient Orphic mysteries of Crete. The Pythagoreans school of thought would iniatiate a new renaissance in philosophy that would lead to the Golden Age of Greece. Pythagoras travelled widely and studied with priests and healers in Crete, Egypt, Palistine, Persia, Chaldea, and India. He studied the astronomy, astrology, mathematics, medicine and the religious practices of the places he visited and collected writings and manuscripts. Between the age of 30 and 40 Pythagorus he went into exile from Samos because he did not want to live under ruler, Polycrates, the tyrant. He settled down in the Greek colony in southern Italy called Croton, where he finally established the Pythagorean School. The students were called Akousmatikoe (listerners) and the advanced practictioers qualified as Mathematikoi (adepts). The works of Pythagoras were used by Plato and Euclid to advanced the science of mathematics and it still forms the basis of modern geometry.
In harmony with his understanding of numbers, Pythagoras invented the seven string Greek lyre and the seven note scale that is the basis of modern western music. They believed in the doctrine of metempsychosis (reincarnation) and were vegetarians due to their belief in the kinship of humans and animals. The Pythagoreans wrote books on the properties of plants, and employed hygienic measures, diet, herbs and gymnastics as treatments. The Pythagoreans envision the solar system as a series of spheres which rotated around a universal center of pneumatic fire. All of the spherical planets, solar systems, and glaxies were revolving around this central Eternal Fire. The Pythagorean heliocentric universe in motion was later rejected by Aristotle and replaced by the geocentric view that the Earth was the center of the universe. The Aristotelian view was accepted by the medieval Church until Copernicus, who was inspired by the Pythagorean teachings, lead the way to proving the heliocentric movement of the planets.
The name Pythagoras means "The Snake and its field of Action" and is the iniatitiory name of a high priest . The Snake is the ancient Serpent Power and its field of action is the root of all mysteries. The Phythagoreans believed that the brain was the seat of higher intelligence, not the heart as Aristotle and his later followers taught. The Pythoreans believed that the human brain and the endocrine glands were the seat of consciousness. They also taught the necessity of both the male and female seed in a act of conception. Alcmaeon a Pythogorean of Croton (500 B.C), was a physician and biologist who performed some of the earliest dissection of the human body and did early work in experimental psychology. In these early studies the Pythagoreans formed the basis of a endocrinology and neurology and its relationship to temperamental psychology. Empedocles (493-433), the founder of the Italian school of medicine, recorded the Pythogorean theory of the five elements and their qualities and introduced the teaching into Latin. He also noted that the blood and the respiration of air were linked and noted that the pores of the skin also breathed. There was also Parmenides (450 B.C), who wrote works on physiology and psychology. He believed that the mental and emotional state of a person was determined by the proportion of heat and cold in the human body.
The Greek naturalists called the dynamic vital force the fiery pneuma, which is the primordial energy that prevades all phenomena. The expansions and contractions of this fiery pneuma produces a space that includes hot and cold areas, as well as light and heavy areas of concentration. These universe elements manifest as the five archytypal elements ether, air, fire, water, earth. The constant ebb and flow of these primordial five elements created the interchange of mass and energy which manifested the galaxies, solar systems and planets. The flux of these elements produces the phenomea of nature we observe as the day and night, the waxing and waning of the moon, the passing of the four seasons and the processes of biological life itself.
The mathematikoi symbolized the five elements as geometric forms as part of the theorum that numbers were the language of physics and psychology. The ether element is represented by neutrality, spaciousness, and invisiblity and its qualities were symbolized by the twelve faced pentagondodecahedron. The air element is cold, light, quick and it is symbolized by a small blue eight faced octahedron. The symbol of the fire element is a very small hot, red, active, four faced tetrahedron, and that of water is a larger, moist, white 20 faced, white icosahedron. The earth is symbolized by a large, dry, yellow, six faced hexahedron. The fire is the smallest and most active, the air is slightly larger than fire and very light, the water is slightly larger and heavier, and the earth is the largest and most dense. Later, in the Timaeus, Plato proposed that the five geometric solids constituted the elemental shapes of the physical atoms of matter and he based his theory of physics on the qualities of their sizes and shapes. The ancient Greek elemental shapes represented a vast store of archetypal symbols and are akin to the Vedic and Buddhist geometric diagrams (yantras) of the five elements (panchbhutta) as they share a very similar heritage. (See chart*)
To the ancient naturalists the human body is a microcosic universe that reflects the greater world as a whole and viewed the human being as a dynamic interplay of the ethereal spirit and the four elements. In the human mircocosm the vital center was symbolized as the internal Sun around which the entire physiological pattern revolved. Philolaus, the early Pythagorean, explained;
"As the former (the universe) has its central fire, so the human body has its essence in heat; the heat of the seed and of the uterus are the origin of all life; the body attracts to itself the external air on account of its desire that heat should be tempered by cold and thus resolves itself in respiration"
Due to the exchange of the cooling external air and the firey internal heat causes the moment of both respiration and circulation which stimulates the absorption and elimination of liquid and solid nourishment. The synergestic combination of the five elements and the pneumatic vital force produces the four humoural constituents from air, food and water. These four humours are the cold and dry atrabile, the hot and moist blood, the moist and cold phlegm, and the dry and hot choler which Hippocrates used on the Ilse of Cos. The Pythagorean theory of health is based on the harmonious balance between the firey Pneuma, the three vital forces, the five elments, and the four humours. This state of harmony can be disturbed by emotional imbalances, environmental factors, faulty nutrition, disruption of the function of the three vital forces, and imbalances of heat, cold, moisture, and dryness internally. Philolaus explained:
"The manner in which they (diseases) are formed can be clear to anyone. The body is composed of a mixture of four elements; earth fire, water, and air. The abundance or lack of these element beyond the natural (contra naturam) or a change of place, making them go from their natural position to another that does not suit them; or the fact that one of them is forced to recieve a quality that is not proper for it but suitable for another kind (for there are different qualities for every kind): all these and other similar factors are the causes that produce disturbance and diseases. there is also another kind of disease that must be regarded as having three different origins: one from the air that is breathed, another from the phlegm; a third from the bile".
Any excess or deficiency of the five elements and four humours (contra naturam), or disruptions of the three energies, wind (breath), heat (bile) and cold (phlegm) produce the state of disease. These factors show that the Pythagorean's theory of medicine has much in common with the Aryur Veda which also uses the five elements (ether, air, fire, water, and earth) and the tridhatu (the three forces) and tridosha (the three faults) theory, which uses, vayu (the vital airs), pitta (the force of heat and light), and kapha (the cooling cohesive force) as the foundation of function and pathology.
These three energies are also symbolized by the Sun (heat), Moon (cold), and Wind (movement), as well as the three Gunas (qualities), sattva (balance), rajas (activity) and tamas (passivity). These similarities show that the Pythagorean view had very ancient links with the Vedic philiosophy but developed along different lines. Much of the philosophy of the Hippocratic Corpus is based on the principles developed by the Pythagorean school. All of the early Greek naturalist believed that a disturbance of the natural elements in a human being was the cause of disease rather than the influences of the gods or spirits. In their view the older mythological archtypes of the Heroic Age contained deeper symbolic meanings and they were studied for a more complete understanding of human nature. This attitude lead to a period of free thinking in philosophy, astronomy, astrology, physiogomy, and medicine.
the commonly received system of astronomy, first taught by Pythagoras, and afterward revived by Copernicus, whence it is also called the Copernican system.
the theorem that the square described upon the hypothenuse of a plane right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares described upon the other two sides.