STEM | Shunya
The SHUNYA COLLECTION - created by Indic Inspirations, in honour and memory of India's greatest gift to the World! Designers and artisans of India, have come together to create various manifestations of the ZERO, in the form of many decorative and utility objects.
The invention of Shunya, aka ZERO was a hugely significant mathematical development, one that is fundamental to calculus, which made physics, engineering and much of modern technology possible. It was as early as the middle of the third century AD that mathematicians in India planted the seed of the idea that would later become so fundamental to the modern world. The findings show how vibrant mathematics have been in the Indian sub-continent for centuries.
The Sanskrit word for zero, śhūnya, which meant "void" or "empty" and derived from the word for growth, combined with the early definition found in the Rig-veda of "lack" or "deficiency." The derivative of the two definitions is Śūnyata, a Buddhist doctrine of "emptiness," or emptying one's mind from impressions and thoughts. From this philosophy, we think that a numeral to use in mathematical equations developed.
ZERO and its operation are first defined by [Hindu astronomer and mathematician] Brahmagupta in 628 AD. An inscription on a temple wall in Gwalior, India, dates back to the ninth century, and has been considered the oldest recorded example of a zero. Another example is an ancient Indian scroll called the Bhakshali manuscript. Discovered in a field in 1881, carbon dating has revealed that it was probably written in the third or fourth century, which pushes the earliest recorded use of zero back 500 years.
