Today, on May 3, we complete 40 days of lockdown; probably the first time in living memory that an entire country has been shut down. On March 25, India began an unprecedented lockdown of crores of Indians in the country, to tackle the spread of COVID-19.
Forty is a significant number across cultures and belief systems.
A full term pregnancy
The connection begins with literally with the beginning of human life. The gestation of human pregnancy is 40 weeks (280 days). “The date of delivery is usually calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period and gestation is around 40 weeks. However, only 4% of women deliver on the due date. Some pregnancies extend to 42 weeks but, usually in India, we don’t wait beyond 40 weeks as complications seem to develop after that, in the Indian context,” says Dr Smithy Sanel George, senior gynaecologist, Thrikkakara Municipal Cooperative Hospital (Kochi).
After childbirth, the period of confinement is also usually 40-45 days depending on which part of the country you are from or your faith. “A six-week confinement or sava mahina (45 days) is recommended after childbirth in most communities of Eastern India,” says homemaker Rashmi Sinha from Patna. “This period is for the mother to recoup after delivery and for a healthy nurturing of the infant. As both their bodies are weak, it is important they are kept away from infections. Traditionally both mother and child are given oil baths and body massage. The time is also one of bonding between the mother and the baby.”
The gestation of a human pregnancy is 40 weeks
Dr George says this is not all old wives’ tales. “According to science, after childbirth, a woman’s internal organs go back to original size by 40-42 days. Until then the body tends to have oedema or bloating, which subsides by this time. We are told not to read, watch television, sew or do anything that strains the eye because even the eyes are also mildly affected by this.”
The number 40 is significant even when it comes to death. These days are for mourning and remembering the departed. Vineesh Shah, a priest from Gujarat, says, “The 40-day period is spent in prayers for the departed soul. However the bereavement period differs from 13 days to a year.” Different cultures use the six-week period for penance, mourning or confinement, he says.
To beat the plague
Associations exist with disease and spread too. In the Middle Ages, ships anchoring at Italian ports had to observe the ‘quarantena’ or isolation for 40 days, which prevented sailors from disembarking. What initially started as ‘trentino’ or 30-day isolation extended by 10 days to become ‘quarantena’ (40 days) in the belief that any infection or plague would either clear up by then or the affected would be dead. Quarantine, the English derivative, became a practice that spread across Europe as plagues repeatedly ravaged the continent.
Quarantine today means any kind of isolation to prevent contagious diseases.
The number 40 has religious significance
The religious associations with 40 are many: the Quran was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed when he was 40; the period from Jesus Christ’s resurrection to ascension was 40 days; he also fasted in the desert for as many days before the temptation; the Hindu prayer ‘Hanuman Chalisa’ has 40 couplets; the Hebrew people lived in the Sinai desert for as many days and so on. The 40 days of the Lenten fast is commemoration of the number of days Jesus Christ is believed to have fasted in the desert.
In the Hindu astrological tradition too, the number is significant. “One year is divided into nine mandalams based on the planets: three of 40 days and six of 41days each. Of these, the most significant are ‘Karikidakam’, ‘Vrishchikam’ and ‘Meenam’, each of which has 40 days,” says K Aravindakshan, scholar and an authority on Hinduism and temple practices. Vrishchikam is also associated with Lord Ayappan, penance and prayer, which explains the significance of the 40-day fast before setting out on the pilgrimage to Sabarimala.
A number of joy
However, not all associations are esoteric. Mathematicians refer to it as a ‘Harshad number’, derived from the Sanskrit harsha (joy) and da (to give). “It has been defined thus by mathematician D.R. Kapekar. A Harshad number is divisible by the sum of its digits 4+0=40 and 40 is divisible by 4,” says Susan Mathew Panakkal, Head of Department, Mathematics, St. Teresa’s College, Kochi.
- ‘Chilla’, derived from the Persian ‘chehel’ meaning 40, is a 40 day retreat for the practice of penance and solitude in Sufism. As part of the ritual, the practitioner sits in a circle meditating without food for 40 days and night in a solitary cell called ‘chilla-khana’.
It is also a Stormer number, named after mathematician Carl Stormer. A Stormer number is a positive integer ‘n’ for which the greatest prime factor of ‘n2 + 1’ is greater han or equal to ‘2n’. ‘n2’ is n to the power of two or n squared. And in science ‘negative forty’ (-40) is the temperature at which the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales correspond: - 40 Degrees C = - 40 Degrees F.