The Sixteen Principal Odu in Binary and Decimal Numbers

The sixteen principal Odu are the sixteen Ifa codes: oyekun (||  ||  ||  ||), okanran  ( (||  ||  ||  |), oturupon  (||  ||  |  ||), iwonrin  (||  ||  |  |), ika (||  |  ||  ||), ofun (||  |  ||  |), iwori (||  |  |  ||), osa (||  |  |  |), obara (| || || ||), odi (| || || |), ose (|  ||  |  ||), otura (|  ||  |  |), irosun (|  |  ||  ||), irete (|  |  ||  |), ogunda (|  |  |  ||), and ogbe (|  |  |  |).

Double line and single line in Ifa are equal to broken and unbroken lines in I Ching. Since broken and unbroken lines are yin and yang respectively, double line is yin and single line is yang.

A scattered Rubik’s Cube puzzle is yin and a solved Rubik’s Cube is yang, implying that double and single lines in Ifa are two states of Rubik’s Cube puzzle.

Double line = || (yin)
                      = 6

Single line = | (yang)
                    = 9

The double and single lines in Ifa codes are 69, which means that Odu is the World Bank.

|| and | = 6 and 9
                = 69 (tao)                

69 is the WWW, where 6 is 0 and 9 is 1. In cyberspace, double line is 0 and single line is 1.

|| = 0
| = 1

To convert the sixteen principal odu to decimal numbers, convert the Ifa codes to binary digits, then connvert from base 2 to base 10.

An Odu is equal to 4 bits (four binary digits).

Substituting 0 for double line and 1 for single line, the sixteen principal Odu are the following sixteen binary numbers: oyeku (0000), okanran (0001), oturupon  (0010), iwonrin  (0011), ika (0100), ofun (0101), iwori (0110), osa (0111), obara (1000), odi (1001), ose (1010), otura (1011), irosun (1100), irete (1101), ogunda (1110), and ogbe (1111).

The conversion of oyeku and ogbe to base 10 are examples of how to convert from Ifa codes to decimal numbers.

Oyeku = || || || ||
Oyeku in bits = 0000

Base10 (oyeku)   =0×2³+0×2²+0×2¹+0×2⁰                                                              = 0×8+0×4+0×2+0×1                                                       = 0+0+0+0+0                                                                             = 0

Ogbe = | | | |
Ogbe in bits = 1111                   

Base10 (ogbe) =1×2³+1×2²+1×2¹+1×2⁰                            = 1×8+1×4+1×2+1×1                                     =8+4+2+1                                                      =15

When converted from base two to base ten, the sixteen principal Odu are the sixteen digits in base 16 numerical system: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15.

The sixteen digits are Mẹ́rìndínlógún – the sixteen cowries in cowrie-shell divination.