How Zero Came To Be In India

We all use the number zero every single day. The device you are reading this on is using 0 in some way to run itself. The binary code–the basic language of most modern computers–is made up of the digits 0 and 1. Arithmetically adding zero may not change much, but an extra zero at the end of a number makes it ten times what it was before. The discovery of zero has changed the way our numbers work and has helped us evolve to where we are today.

Before there was zero, many civilizations had a placeholder for it. The Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations had discovered some form of zero independently. Robert Kaplan, a Harvard professor, says the first zero was documented in Mesopotamia about 5000 years ago. However, this was not zero as we know it. It was a placeholder like leaving an empty column in hundreds and thousands.

Ancient India was full of mathematicians and scientists. Mathematics was studied and used in many ways even back then. Some say that the Babylonian idea travelled to India and was developed into a numeral. Others say that it developed independently in India. Dr. George Gheverghese Joseph suggests that the zero was first found in India around 458 A.D. Zero in Sanskrit is śūnya which leads us to believe that it came from the Sanskrit word śūnyata meaning emptiness or void. Brahmagupta, a renowned mathematician and astronomer, is credited with defining zero and its operations. However, he does not claim to use it for the first time either meaning it was there since before that. A scroll in Bhaukshali script discovered in 1881 is said to contain the first records of zero. Recent carbon dating has revealed that it is from the third or fourth century. Aryabhatta is credited with giving the concept of zero as a digit and using it in his place value system. Thus, zero as we know it today is said to have originated in India.

In this way, a simple number that has changed so much was ‘invented’ in India. Zero is often a forgotten hero when it comes to numbers. Not many people tend to choose it as their favourite. However, it is one of the most important numbers and has changed the way the world has developed. Our lives would not be the same without the understanding of zero as a digit many many centuries ago.

An illustration of the binary code which uses 0 and 1