The incredible Story of the Number Zero
- Max Hauri
- Mar 25
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 25
Introduction: This incredible story of the number zero breakthrough, laid the foundation for modern mathematics, influencing everything from algebra to calculus, and eventually shaping the number system that the entire world uses today.
A few years ago, I showed Ian a church in Bern. Our conversation turned to an inscription on the wall, written without any punctuation. Ian explained to me that, in the past, there were no spaces between words. itwaswrittenlikethisandwentonwithoutanyspacesatall.
The invention of spacing between words was clearly a major breakthrough!
But it gets even more interesting – the origin of the empty space between words actually comes from religion, from the practice of clearing the mind. Meditation helped achieve a desired emptiness. It also contributed to a healthier connection between Thetan and body.
It’s all about the right distance. This healthy distance is beneficial. One of the reasons why auditing works is that by looking at something and communicating with it, you create a certain distance. Using the communication formula "Cause-Distance-Effect," a gap is formed between the person and the problem – something that was once overwhelming and too close suddenly gains space.
Below is an insightful text from Indian professor Manjul Bhargava.
At the beginning, there was TR 0: Today there is an INVITATION!
I invite you all to join in every last Wednesday of the month at 07 pm!
TR 0 gives you that zero point in the stress of everyday life.
Much love.
Max Hauri
The Incredible Story of the Number Zero
From Upanishads to Brahmagupta – The Journey of Number 0.
Most people are not aware that Zero is India's contribution – and a very important one. The general public often does not fully understand what it means that India contributed Zero, why it is such a significant discovery, or how exactly it came to be in India.
That story is truly incredible. I believe it demonstrates the power of multidisciplinary thinking and the importance of understanding ancient Indian knowledge – not just in terms of its historical significance but in how knowledge itself develops over time. It is also a fascinating story because Zero first emerged in India before spreading across the world.
How did the concept of Zero originate?
It actually began in ancient Indian philosophy. The first instance of the idea of Zero can be found in Indian philosophical texts – particularly in the Upanishads and various ancient Buddhist scriptures, which explored the power of meditation.
What was the goal of meditation? It was to achieve a state known as Shunyata – emptiness, or "zeroness". The objective was to clear the mind of emotions, ego, and thoughts to attain a certain state of connection between mind and body. This is the first recorded use of the word shunya, which later came to mean "Zero."
Shunyata – the state of emptiness – dates back thousands of years. This is the earliest known appearance of the concept of zero in world literature.
The evolution of Zero: from philosophy to mathematics
There were several key milestones in the development of zero.
Philosophical Zero – The first stage was the conceptual idea of zero, emerging in Indian philosophy through meditation and the notion of shunyata.
Linguistic Zero – The next major development was transforming this concept into a written symbol.
The earliest recorded symbolic representation of zero appeared in the field of linguistics. The great grammarian Panini, who laid the foundations of modern linguistics, introduced a symbol for the empty syllable – a syllable that represents nothingness. This symbol, known as avagraha (ऽ), was a kind of linguistic Zero, marking an absence in speech and language.
From linguistics, zero made its way into poetry. When poets needed a symbol to represent a pause or an empty beat in a poetic rhythm, they used the avagraha. Similarly, in music, when notating a rest (a pause in sound), this same symbol was used.
At this point, zero existed in philosophy, literature, linguistics, and poetry, but it had not yet been adopted in mathematics.
Zero enters mathematics
By around the 3rd century CE [Common Era], Indian mathematicians began considering the idea of using a symbol to represent nothingness in calculations. The first known instance of this appears in the Bakhshali Manuscript (circa 300 CE), where Indian numerals – including Zero as a dot (•) – were used in calculations.
At this stage, Zero was still just a placeholder. It was not yet regarded as an independent number but simply a tool to help write numbers correctly within the Indian numeral system.
By the 4th century, the concept of zero had already entered public consciousness. For example, in the 4th-century Sanskrit novel Vasavadatta, the night sky is poetically described as being filled with "Zero dots" scattered across the heavens – a reference to how Zero was represented in writing at the time.
However, it was not until Aryabhata, around the year 499 CE, that zero became a key part of mathematical computations. Aryabhata used the digits 0-9 to simplify astronomical calculations. This was a revolutionary step toward the number system we use today.
Even then, Zero was still viewed as a placeholder rather than a full-fledged number.
Brahmagupta: The moment Zero became a real number
The final breakthrough came in 628 CE, when the Indian mathematician Brahmagupta formally defined zero as a number in its own right.
Brahmagupta was the first to write mathematical rules for zero, such as:
Any number plus Zero equals the number itself.
Any number multiplied by Zero is Zero.
He demonstrated that zero could be treated like any other number in arithmetic. This was a turning point in human history – for the first time, zero was recognized not just as a placeholder but as a number with its own properties.
This breakthrough laid the foundation for modern mathematics, influencing everything from algebra to calculus, and eventually shaping the number system that the entire world uses today.
Fields Medalist and renowned Number Theorist
Prof. Manjul Bhargava
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