The Triangle is called a primary form of the pyramid. "The royal mind that conceived the pyramids and intended them to endure as everlasting monuments to the entrance and exit of a human career, undoubtedly felt the stability of the three sided figure. "
The Triangle is one of the symbols of the Buddhist triad. In the secret doctrines of certain sects it typified the yoni or matrix "from which the world was manifest." In Japan it is a flame symbol typifying fire. The Egyptians called the nature of the universe the fairest of triangles. The form that signified the feminine principle or maternity was the hieroglyph of the moon, and is often depicted with the sacred baboon. Sometimes the triangle surmounts a pillar with the baboon before it in an attitude of worship.
The Triangle was the delight of the Greek philosophers. Plato used it as a sytnbol of marriage. In this triangle he makes the perpendicular equal three, the base four and the hypothenuse five. The perpendicular represents the male, the base the female and the hypothenuse their offspring. This is Osiris the first principle, Isis the matrix and Horus the com-pleted world, for "three is the first odd number and is perfect, four is a square that has an even numbertwo- for its side and five is in some respects like each pa,rent for it is the sum of three and two." In this diagram of marriage Plato calls the son "that which is better."1
1 Plutarch's On the Cessation of Oracles.
