Origin of Zero-An Eternal Enigma

Abstract

As far as modern Mathematics is concerned, the most significant Indian contribution is ‘zero’. No pun intended, this statement happens to be true in its face value. While the exact time of its origin is still a matter of opinion, it is generally accepted worldwide by a majority of scholars that the decimal system of enumeration along with the number zero (0) of our present day, was first thought of in ancient Vedic India, perhaps initially philosophically and then gradually mathematically, which eventually became a numeral for the mathematical expression of ‘nothing’, a number in its own right, a numeral in the same footing with every other numerals, the greatest gift of India to the world, without which the scientific achievements of modern world would possibly never have been attained. This article is like a scanner scrutinizing briefly every early human civilization in search of a possible conceptual counterpart there, which, for some reason or other, failed to bloom to their true potential. It is a nutshell version of an enigmatic odyssey, the genesis of our present day mathematical ‘zero’ from its early conceptualization in India to its all pervading presence in every modern civilization through transmigration.