Natural History of Genesis of the number Zero

What is it about?

Who invented zero? Well, interestingly, there is no one liner as answer. And the acceptability of any attempted answer generally depends on the perception of the seeker, as the connotation of the word “zero” can be perceived from several different but interrelated perspectives. Many ancient civilizations, including India, had their own version of “zero” or zero-like concept or symbol as a representative of “nothingness”; some as a philosophical conundrum, elsewhere some other even in a practical sense, such as a filler or a gap on their counting board; but except in India, none of these early and somewhat hesitant initial concepts did ultimately mature in its paramount mathematical potential to the fullest extent. Today it is generally accepted worldwide that this peerless concept of a decimal place-value system of enumeration in tandem with the true "zero" of our present day mathematics, evolved in ancient India. Initially philosophically nurtured and analyzed during the early periods of oral tradition in India by several different schools of thought, eventually at some point of time the concept reflected in the Sanskrit word “sunya” was transformed into a numeral for mathematical expression of "nothing". Perhaps at a later period, it bloomed in its full potential as a number “kha” in its own right, an integer on which mathematical operations can be done. Indeed, this unique feature makes “kha”, the Indian zero, as the true forefather of our modern mathematical zero. However, the exact time frames of this gradual evolution is still hotly debated, a recent controversy in this direction being the outcome of carbon dating of the famous Bakshali manuscript by the Bodleian libraries. Going in other direction, some scholars suggest that a trace of this concept, if not in total operational perspective, might have had a Greek origin that traveled to India during the Greek invasion of the northern part of the country in the pre-Mauryan period. A relatively recent third view professes the Chinese origin of the concept of zero as a place-holder, that might have traveled with the traders from China to the far-east parts of Asia, to places like Cambodia, then under Buddhist influence that spread from mainland India, where it got the shape of ‘bold dot', the earliest known written form of zero. They want to credit the mainland India only for ‘garlanding’ this concept of zero towards its modern shape, sometime around the 8th or 9th century C.E. Historical reconstruction of mathematical knowledge that was likely to be prevalent in Indian Antiquity or at an earlier period, is much like arranging an enormous jigsaw puzzle, many pieces of which are missing. Competent historians of Mathematics, all over the world, are trying to arrange the available pieces, according to their own respective ‘stance’s, with an obvious intention to try and guess the picture that it may suggest. And the job is anything but easy. Pre-conceived ideas sometime come in the way of scholarly acumen, prompting one to misplace one or two pieces or perhaps not to place them at all, distorting the figure to accommodate one’s ‘stance’. Of course, there are scholars, carefully steering a middle course, analyzing objectively as far as possible, the available pieces of information or sometimes even the lack of information, trying to make a pattern out of it. With every new piece being found occasionally, as a new input to the jigsaw puzzle, one has to try and find its right place in the puzzle, sometimes destroying the existing pattern. And the journey continues.

Featured Image

Photo by Lukas Juhas on Unsplash

Photo by Lukas Juhas on Unsplash

Why is it important?

To know about the Scientific and technological development of Human race that became much easier with the invention of the NUMBER zero and Decimal system.

Perspectives