Is the Phaistos Disk a Buddhist meditation diagram?
At Phaistos in Crete a small clay disk of 15 cm was discovered in a thick layer of ashes in a plastered-over storage space by Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier in 1908.
It took only minutes to recognise the images as a step-by-step illustrated meditation diagram, but it took a long time to work out the brilliance and complexity of its multi-layered design.
The Phaistos Disk is a coded master key with a system of numbers that was used to illustrate a network of knowledge for up to 1,800 years. With this new evidence the forgotten origins of Greek philosophy will be rediscovered and Europe’s cultural history will have to be re-evaluated.
The images imprinted in a spiral shape followed a simple numerical order, but were used repeatedly, distributed as codes in fields marked by lines to design a complex network with many layers of knowledge. Small enough to carry in one’s pocket the diagram is still recognisable 2,600 years later as a summary with an overview of the meditation system originally taught by the Buddha in the 6th century BC, described in the Pali texts of the Tripitaka.
Example: How to decipher codes on the Phaistos Disk, the Master Key
Symbol 2 on the disk, the warrior wearing a plume with 12 divisions (Dependent Origination), is a meditator in search of liberation repeated 19 times: the “ᛖ rune named horse” to represent the Buddha’s ascetic life and liberation. On Side A 14 times the fish is a meditator’s mind: exploration of Ultimate Mind-Materiality (nāma & rūpa) analysed dissolved in particles and space as taught by the Buddha. On Side B the warrior was repeated 5 times: the “journey of life” endlessly reborn as “5 clinging aggregates”.
Was Greek philosophy – the “love of wisdom” – linked to meditation as taught by the Buddha in India?
Evidence that the meditation system taught by the Buddha in the 6th century BC formed the foundations of Greek philosophy – “the search for wisdom” – was completely overlooked by 19-20th century archaeologists and academics.
Confusion caused by archaeologists: fashionable 19th-century dates of Schliemann and Evans: about Greek poet Homer
Following the 8th-century-BC Greek poet Homer as historic guide, archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann named his discovery of a golden mask at Mycenae after King Agamemnon, his friend Arthur Evans classified the ruins of Knossos in Crete as the palace of King Minos.
Images on the Phaistos Disk and Linear A & B clay tablets from the sites are said to be scripts of forgotten dialects of ancient Geek, but have not yet been successfully translated phonetically.
Palaces dated to the Bronze Age were supposedly destroyed by an earthquake in 1300 BC and never used again. Homer’s epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, once used as historic references by archaeologists, are now accepted by scholars as belonging to a preliterate oral tradition.
Bronze Age dates as chosen for the sites, following fashionable ideas of the 19th century, have not yet been adjusted by modern academics.
Phaistos Disk: phonetic Greek hieroglyphs — or a visual diagram to teach meditation?
Was the Phaistos Disk designed as a visual diagram to teach meditation?
In the first publication about the Phaistos Disk Evans listed only 45 images, he ignored the first symbol as meaningless: the 5 dots that represent the “gates of concentration; the 5 clinging aggregates”. A second symbol was omitted: the position of the 19th symbol was noted in texts for its absence of an image, but its presence – to illustrate the formless awareness of deep concentration that leads to liberation – was ignored, the gap was thought to be insignificant.
Were the 47 symbols on the Phaistos Disk arranged in a fixed numerical order and used as ideograms to explain the meditation system taught by the Buddha in the 6th century BC?
Illustrated knowledge about the 6th sense: the mind
Were soft clay tablets used as writing materials at learning centres? Were the Linear A and Linear B scripts tools to teach students meditation from the 6th century BC, rather than forgotten dialects of Bronze Age Greek as suggested by archaeologists Heinrich Schliemann and Arthur Evans?
Were symbols on clay tablets lists of trade goods kept in the storage rooms for selling, as translated by linguists, or drawings to illustrate a meditator’s perception of consciousness?
Was the hidden basement where the Phaistos Disk was discovered a library, the thick layer of ashes evidence that it was filled with birch bark manuscripts in Kharosthi – a mnemonic script specially developed during the reign of Ashoka around 250 BC to record Buddhist Pali texts?
Were Buddhist texts in Kharosthi script obtained from the famous universities of Taxila and Nalanda in India and carried by students to be used at various learning centres in Europe?
A network of knowledge about the concentrated 6th sense: “light of wisdom”
Was the Phaistos Disk designed to systematically illustrate knowledge about the 6th sense as taught by the Buddha Gotama in the 6th century BC?
Were abstract symbols that resembled a meditator’s awareness with the 6th sense of inner consciousness and perception reused for centuries to illustrate the 6th sense?
“perception of consciousness”
Sculpture Lunigianesi Italy: “Light of wisdom appears in front of the face” – a nimitta in Pali
The Buddha described the mind, the 6th sense
“Wandering far and wide on its own, without form, the mind lies in the heart-cavern within. To bring it under control is to be freed from the bondage of ignorance.“
Dhammapada verse 37
Ajhahn Munindo – published by Aruna Publications 2006
Europe: a trail of objects with evidence of knowledge about the 6th sense
Numbers illustrated by images on the Phaistos Disk can be followed as a recognisable thread that runs through 1,800 years of European history. From the Hakkāri stele in Babylonia and clay pots in Athens made in the 6th century BC, from the famous Cave Simile described 150 years later by Plato in his dialogue The Republic to precious golden and silver objects with intricate coded designs made at many locations in Europe hundreds of years later, knowledge of the 6th sense was illustrated by meditators on precious and well designed votive objects until the 14th century in Scandinavia.
6th century BC Hakkāri stele & Athens pot Wheel 16 Vipassanā Insight Knowledges
Ravlunda Bracteat Sweden 6-7th century with Tetractys of Pythagoras: Perfect Number 10
Golden Collars Sweden and Golden Hats Germany
Phaistos Disk symbol 21: Golden Horns of Gallehus in Denmark with detailed images to illustrate the 6th sense and liberation step-by-step.
Golden Horns of Gallehus: 6th sense 32 runes (32 Marks of a Great Man) in 4 blocks (Four Noble Truths)
Massive Silver Chains Scotland, Shandwick coded High Cross Pictish Beast: absorption concentration
Did Pythagoras design the Phaistos Disk, a coded master key to illustrate the “mystic numbers”?
Pythagoras was the first to call himself a philosopher – “one who loves wisdom” – born c.580-500 BC at Samos on the Ionian Coast. His father was a gem engraver and he is still famous – in the 21st century – as a mathematician. It is historically possible that he personally met the Buddha (624-544 BC), Greeks from the the Ionian coast were described as “Yonas/Yonakas” in Pali texts.
Pythagoras learned his writing skills on wet clay tablets in Babylon (Mesopotamia) during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar and hieroglyphs from the Pharaoh Amasis II and Priests at the famous Temples of Egypt (biography “Life of Pythagoras” by Roman author Porphyry).
Pythagoras lived as an ascetic in a cave in Italy and taught metempsychosis: the equivalent of Dependent Origination (Cause and Effect) originally taught by the Buddha. The four Greek elements — earth, water, fire, air — was also the name of an essential meditation technique, Catu-dhātu-vavatthāna-kammatthāna.
Were the mystic numbers of Pythagoras used to design the Phaistos Disk, a coded master key, to teach the meditation system of the Buddha in Europe, later also described by Plato in his dialogues, the “unwritten doctrines”?
Video animated text: Did Pythagoras make the Phaistos Disk?
Was the Phaistos Disk of Crete made by Pythagoras in the 6th century BC? Pythagoras (c. 580–500 BC) was a contemporary of the Buddha Gotama (c. 624 – 544 BC) in India, he was about 36 years old when the Buddha entered Parinibbāna.
If his teachings of “metempsychosis” (knowledge of past lives), was based on Dependent Origination as taught by the Buddha, the symbols on the Phaistos Disk and the Linear A and Linear B scripts were “ideograms” to teach meditation step by step, and not the lost phonetic alphabets of ancient Greek dialects as currently thought.
Phaistos Disk Master Key:
a tool to teach meditation
The Phaistos Disk is coded a diagram designed as a “quick-start guide” with a visual overview of the meditation system taught by the Buddha in India in the 6th century BC. The 47 pictures follows a numerical order and were used as ideograms to visually illustrate meditation theory — to teach students how to meditate.
The 47 symbols on the Phaistos Disk were positioned in 32 fields on Side A, symbolic of the “32 Marks of a Great Man”, the title of a Pali text that described the Buddha’s qualities. In 30 fields on Side B the meditator’s path to liberation is illustrated.
47 coded symbols in numerical order to create a systematic overview of the meditation system
The design of the coded meditation diagram was planned carefully: complex formulas were designed by grouping symbols together in fields, chosen repetitions for each symbol on Side A and Side B were used to successfully explain meditation theory found in the Abhidhamma, briefly listed in the table below.
For a more detailed version see Ogham Script Ireland on site www.lostlinksofbuddhism.com
47 symbols were imprinted repeatedly on a 15 cm oval clay disk in a seemingly chaotic mix, but with careful observation intricate patterns with multiple layers of knowledge start appearing.
When following lines in the clay that link clusters of symbols, threads of information reveal a network of knowledge that was well known and practiced in Europe for at least 1,800 years.
Not limited by language barriers images were used to create “mathematical formulas” compatible with the meditation system taught by the Buddha Gotama in India in the 6th century BC and introduced into Greece by Pythagoras, mathematician and the first to call himself a philosopher: “one who loves wisdom”.
Why was the Phaistos Disk designed?
The meditation system covers a complex network of knowledge related to the Abhidhamma, the “higher teachings of the Buddha”. 6th-century BC objects were designed to teach students, images and dotted codes on ceramic pots followed the same system of numbers that were summarised on the brilliantly designed Phaistos Disk: a simplified diagram that was easy to remember.
Dipylon Crater Hirschfeld 6 chariots & coded scene to depict the Buddha’s Parinibbāna side 1 of 4
Many objects followed with varying degrees of complexity, codes can be counted and deciphered with the used of the Phaistos Disk, the Master Key.
An exquisite example with a step-by-step description on attainment of Four Noble Truths is a Linear B clay tablet Knossos KN Fp 13.
Vix Crater cast in Sybaris near Croton
Cast in brass in Sybaris in the 6th century BC the Vix crater may have been designed by Pythagoras himself who lived as an ascetic in a cave in nearby Croton teaching metempsychosis to his visitors – the Greek equivalent of Dependent Origination taught by the Buddha.
19. … He taught that the soul was immortal and that after death it transmigrated into other animated bodies. …Pythagoras was the first one to introduce these teachings into Greece.”
— Porphyry c. AD232-303, biography “Life of Pythagoras“
Four teams of chariots each side, eight in total with 16 horses, 32 in total are codes represent the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, Eightfold Noble Path, Sixteen Vipassanā Insight Knowledges and 32 Marks of a Great Man: the Buddha (a Pali text). Codes on manes of horses represent meditation techniques and concepts also found on the Hirschfeld Crater Athens and Phaistos Disk in Crete.
Hand of Irulegi in Spain: coded abhaya mudra
The life-sized brass Hand of Irulegi carbon dated to 80-72 BC found near Pamplona Spain with 39 Archaic Greek glyphs to illustrate the rebirth cycle can be deciphered with Phaistos codes. The abhaya mudra, typical of Buddha statues first made in Gandhāra around AD120 by Greek sculptors, was illustrated on prototype statues in Roquepertuse in the 6-5th century BC near Massalia, a philosopher’s colony started by Ionian Greeks, “Yonas” in Pali texts.
“… their redemption by a certain man at the cost of a single horse.”
Phaistos Disk system of numbers: expressed by different scripts for 1,800 years
The system of numbers illustrated on the Phaistos Disk, the “mystic numbers of Pythagoras”, was used repeatedly to design famous archaeological objects from the 6th century BC until the 14th century. Different scripts following the system of numbers were developed in regions following local culture: Ogham hand signs in Ireland and Elder Futhark runes in Scandinavia.
Archaic Greek letters and Geometric Patterns used from the 6th century BC to AD950
From the 6th century BC Archaic Greek letters and Geometric patterns were used to illustrate the system of numbers on surprising objects, both big and small, to simulate the function of the 6th sense.
The process was described in detail by Plato 150 years later in his dialogues that are recognisable as Buddhist Dhamma talks prepared for local Greek followers.
White Horse of Uffington 550 BC with coded Archaic Greek symbols
The most famous example, the 110-metres-long White Horse of Uffington was carbon dated by Oxford 1380-550 BC: matching the life of both the Buddha and of philosopher Pythagoras.
250 BC: Ashoka sends an envoy to Europe, the Celtic Oppidum of the Parisii founded
The Oppidum of Paris was started c. 250 BC. The date coincides with the envoy sent by Ashoka to Europe to teach Dhamma, a life-long task. The serpentine horse coins were carefully designed meditation diagrams minted by the Parisii in Paris and are amongst the most refined of Celtic votive coins minted to celebrate 500 years after the Buddha in c. 50 BC. The shapes are similar to the White Horse of Uffington and are found as motifs on Pict stones in Scotland.
“Serpentine Horse coins” Parisii Oppidum (250 BC)
Archaic Greek symbols on Pict stones Scotland
The relationship between Archaic Greek letters and the meditation system was described in great detail by Plato in his dialogue Cratylus. Dante described in the Divine Comedy that philosophy left Pallas to settle in Alba where it continued for hundreds of years:
“When Pallas died to give it sovereignty. Thou knowest it made in Alba its abode”
– Dante, Divine Comedy Paradise Canto 6, lines 36-37 Translation Longfellow
Plato described in the Cratylus that letters were used in different ways before writing was common, the most important was to understand the deeper layers of meaning: letters were also chosen for their shapes and used as ideograms or as numbers to show the way to deeper knowledge that came from abroad – introduced by “foreigners” – letters had a meaning that went beyond phonetic sounds. Plato described the search for the “Ultimate Truth” in the Cratylus”:
[439b] “ … Socrates: How realities are to be learned or discovered is perhaps too great a question for you or me to determine; but it is worth while to have reached even this conclusion, that they are to be learned and sought for, not from names but much better through themselves than through names.”
Lists of abstract codes: Auraicept na n-Éces treatise in the Book of Leinster and Book of Ballymote Ireland
In 1164 in the Book of Leinster and in the 14th century in the Book of Ballymote in Ireland a list of illustrated diagrams were included – the Auraicept na n-Éces had to be a handbook with codes used by designers of engraved stones that can be linked to ceramic pots from the 6th century BC found at the Dipylon gates of Athens.
The codes can still be deciphered with the use of the system of numbers illustrated on the Phaistos Disk, the final series includes the “Ogham of the Norse”, the Elder Futhark rune script.
The codes illustrated as abstract Ogham Hand Signs and Elder Futhark runes in Scandinavia
The Phaistso Disk system of numbers was used repeatedly as repetitive abstract symbols but was eventually simplified when groups were replaced by a single symbol: the Ogham Hand Signs in Ireland and Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon Runes.
Codes from the meditation system illustrated at Newgrange Kerbstone 1 (5 spirals: 5 clinging aggregates) and Knowth Kerbstone 15 (to follow the teacher)
Codes illustrated on Ogham stones and Viking coins
Golden Collar of Möne Sweden: man morphs into a horse
In Newgrange several Ogham and rune inscriptions are proof that the site was visited by Scandinavians
What did the Romans know?
Trade links between India and Europe have been well established, much information on the Silk Route is available. The influence of the meditation system on European culture and philosophy in particular is entirely lacking, scholars still deny that there is any evidence of Buddhism in Europe.
Rome started as a small village near Etruscan Caere, the destruction of society by Julius Caesar cannot be underestimated. However, the greatest achievement described by Caesar Augustus was that the doors of the Temple of Janus was closed occasionally under his reign: there was no war in the Empire.
Started by Augustus and his general Agrippa a roads network from Scotland in the West to the mouth of the Ganges in the East was maintained at Roman costs for hundreds of years, 3 ships per week sailed from Egypt to India. The Pantheon was built at the personal cost of Agrippa and inaugurated when Augustus was appointed Emperor, after it burnt down the new Pantheon was built under Hadrian as a 3D monument to knowledge of the meditation system, an “eye to see the truth”: Vipassanā.
Texts from antiquity were deliberately corrupted to create a false history.
Scandinavia rune poems 8-9th century: riddles and names still aligned with the numbers of the Phaistos Disk after 1,500 years
The Rune poems were short riddles to describe each rune to teach students, with the name and definition each rune was aligned to a Phaistos Disk symbol, always following the correct order.
When the link between the Rune Poems and the Phaistos Disk became clear it was possible to choose a definition for each symbol on the Phaistos Disk, which can be used to translate rune stones.
Phaistos Disk numbers followed by Dante as structure to write the Divine Comedy
1,800 years after the meditation system was introduced in Greece, a masterpiece of European literature was written by poet Dante Alighieri from Florence, living in Rome under protection of the Roman Catholic Pope. Dante meticulously followed the numbers and the meaning of the symbols on the Phaistos Disk, which were also described as riddles in the Scandinavian rune poems. Dante’s Divine Comedy was not an original work, but a Commentary to introduce new goals to replace the old system that was illustrated on the Phaistos Disk.
Meditation chart with methods still taught unchanged at monasteries after 2,500 years
Sketch of an Excellent Man
Documentary 1h43min with an overview of the meditation system
In the Pa Auk Forest Monastery in Myanmar over a thousand people from all over the world are first taught 40 concentration techniques to be able to analyse the ultimate realities of Mind and Matter (Nāma and Rūpa) at subatomic particle level by “their own direct experience”.
They then proceed to practise Dependent Origination and Insight Meditation (Vipassanā) as described in the “Path of Purification” (Visuddhi Magga), a 1,500 year old summary of the Pāli texts: the legacy of the profound practical knowledge as originally taught by Gotama the Buddha.
For people in search of the truth it can be a life changing experience to learn about “the wisdom light” produced by a concentrated mind found in the heart base – the sixth sense – described in detail.
Rare footage of the Most Venerable Pa Auk Tawya Sayadaw explaining Vipassanã and Dependent Origination in English, illustrated by an artist/architect (watercolour, animation) make this subtle and profound knowledge enjoyable to watch even by non practitioners.
Links 14 translations: www.settiwessels.com
Translations available: English, Dutch, German, Lithuanian, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Burmese, Chinese, Indonesian, Korean, Sinhalese, Thai, Vietnamese. Information about books and links to more films and texts about Buddhism: www.settiwessels.com