The “Invention” of Zero

 

I think I was around ten years old when I heard that Aryabhatta invented the zero. I had vision of this clever mathematician sitting on the banks of a river and conjuring up the zero. However, I soon became skeptical. How could someone invent the zero? I mean, if before the invention of zero, someone had two mangoes, she eats both of them, her friend asks her how many mangoes do you have left, what would she say? Would she be at a total loss for words because the zero hadn’t been invented until then?

When I asked this question to my mother (a software engineer), she told me that what Aryabhatta invented was actually the concept of zero. At that point in time, I did not question her any further, though I did not fully comprehend what she told me.

I hear about the “invention of zero” time and again and these days I want to scream, what was invented wasn’t zero, but the modern notation and symbol for zero. The concept of zero as a placeholder in positional numeral systems was independently invented by ancient civilizations in Mesopotamia, India, and China. The ancient Mayans also had a concept of zero. However, the modern notation and symbol for zero was developed by the famous mathematician Brahmagupta in the 7^th century.

Recently I read a book called “Who Invented The Zero?” by Sidin Vadukut, which beautifully explained to me how the concept of zero evolved.

According to Vadukut, Aryabhatta in his treatise Aryabhatiya refers to a placeholder “kha” whenever there is no digit in a certain place in a number. However it was Brahmagupta who used zero as a numeral in its own right and not just as a placeholder or indicator of nothing.

Vadukut tells us that in Gwalior, near the Gwalior Fort, a small Chaturbuja temple has an inscription over its main door which goes like this:

"Om! Adoration to Vishnu! In the year 933, on the second day of the bright half of Magha…the whole town gave to the temple of the nine Durgas…a piece of land belonging to the village of Chudapallika…270 royal hastas in length, and 187 hastas in breadth, a flower-garden, on an auspicious day …" Then, a little later, the transcription says: "And on this same day, the town gave to these same two temples a perpetual endowment to the effect…for the requirements of worship, 50 garlands of such market flowers as available at the particular season."

There you go. For the first time in recorded history, the symbol for zero was used in exactly the same way as we do now!