The Esoteric Origin of the Universal Weekly Sequence
We all know that the names of the days of the week derive from the observation of celestial bodies by ancient astronomers. The seven celestial bodies visible to the naked eye, which change their position in the sky (unlike the "fixed" stars), are: the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn.
However, some questions remain unresolved to this day: why "weeks" of exactly seven days were created, and, most intriguingly, the "universal weekly sequence"—the specific arrangement of days within the week—which has yet to be definitively explained.
Regarding the seven-day duration, several hypotheses have been proposed. The most probable is that in ancient times, likely during the Sumerian era or even earlier in the Khambat civilization, people observed that the Moon takes approximately 28 days to orbit the Earth. This period, known as a "lunar phase," consists of four segments, each lasting seven days: full moon, waning moon, new moon, and waxing moon.
In the astrological traditions of the Sumerians, Egyptians, and Greco-Romans, the names of the days of the week derive from the seven celestial bodies visible to the naked eye: the Sun (worshiped as a god in many ancient civilizations and associated with Apollo in Greek and Roman cosmology) was linked to Sunday, the Moon (associated with the goddess Artemis in Greek mythology and Diana in Roman) to Monday, Mars (the god of war, Ares in Greece) to Tuesday, Mercury (the messenger of the gods, Hermes in Greece) to Wednesday, Jupiter (the supreme deity, Zeus in Greece) to Thursday, Venus (the goddess of love, Aphrodite in Greece) to Friday, and Saturn (or Cronus in Greek mythology, god of agriculture) to Saturday.
In ancient Indian astrological tradition, the names of the days of the week are derived from the same celestial bodies: Surya (Sun), Soma (Moon), Mangala (Mars), Budha (Mercury), Guru (Jupiter), Shukra (Venus), and Shani (Saturn). Similarly, in Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, and Korean traditions, the names of the days of the week are also linked to these same visible celestial bodies whose positions change relative to an observer on Earth.
The “weekly sequence,” however, is more complex. The universally adopted sequence—Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday—does not correspond to the distance of the celestial bodies from Earth, their size, or their brightness. Strangely, all ancient cultures, from Chinese to Indian, Middle Eastern, and Egyptian, adopted the same weekly sequence, making this a historical enigma.
Is it possible that this identical sequence was adopted simultaneously by such distant peoples? Or is there perhaps a common, antediluvian origin from which all weekly sequences derived? No definitive answers exist, but it is interesting to explore the theories that led to the current weekly sequence.
The First Theory: “Skipping Every Three Bodies”
Starting from the sequence of celestial bodies ranked by their perceived distance from Earth (according to the ancients): Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, the method involves skipping every three bodies, producing: Saturn (Saturday), Sun (Sunday), Moon (Monday), Mars (Tuesday), Mercury (Wednesday), Jupiter (Thursday), and Venus (Friday).
The Second Theory: Assigning Planets to Hours of the Day
This hypothesis assigns the name of a planet to each hour of the day (24 hours), beginning with the first hour (00:00–01:00) named after Saturn (the most distant celestial body, according to the ancients), the second hour to Jupiter, the third to Mars, and so on. The 24th hour (23:00–24:00) is assigned to Mars, and the first hour of the following day to the Sun. Following this pattern, the first day is dedicated to Saturn (Saturday), the second to the Sun (Sunday), and the third to the Moon (Monday). This logic produces the weekly sequence we use today.
These methods were transmitted by the historian Cassius Dio in his Roman History. According to scholar Bickerman, it was the Greek philosopher Celsus who attributed the Persian origin to the hypothesis of assigning each hour to a planet.
The Third Theory: An Esoteric-Alchemical Perspective
The Peruvian esotericist Daniel Ruzo (1900–1991), who extensively studied the Marcahuasi plateau in Peru, proposed a unique esoteric-alchemical theory. In medieval alchemy, derived from Egyptian tradition, each ancient deity was associated with an element: Saturn with lead, Jupiter with tin, Mars with iron, Apollo (Sun) with gold, Venus with copper, Mercury with mercury, and Diana (Moon) with silver.
When the atomic weight of each element is considered, we obtain the following descending sequence:
- Lead (Saturn, Saturday), 82
- Mercury (Mercury, Wednesday), 80
- Gold (Apollo, Sunday), 79
- Tin (Jupiter, Thursday), 50
- Silver (Diana, Monday), 47
- Copper (Venus, Friday), 29
- Iron (Mars, Tuesday), 26
Applying the "skip every two elements" rule to this sequence, starting with Saturn, yields the universal weekly sequence: Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
As we can see, various theories attempt to explain the "universal weekly sequence," but none are definitively proven. It seems unlikely that the so-called "first civilizations" (Sumerians, Indus Valley, Chinese) adopted the same weekly sequence purely by chance.
A more plausible explanation points to a common origin for this sequence, perhaps in the antediluvian Khambat culture. This theory is supported by archaeological discoveries in the submerged regions off the Indian state of Gujarat and by references in the Mahabharata, which describe the legendary kingdom of Anarta.
YURI LEVERATTO
Copyright 2011
