Read the previous part at http://www.facebook.com/#!/note.php?note_id=10151272222855461
This article is sixth in a series of articles that attempt to figure out how British managed to maintain their hold over such a large country. I have somewhat strayed from the original subject and now we are looking at the roots of the ‘Aryan invasion’ theory.
(This would be my last article to prove that Aryan Invasion is a myth)
It might look odd that I picked up the topic of invention of zero to discuss Aryan invasion. However, if you keep your patience that invention of zero disproves Aryan invasion as well.
Coming back to subject of this post:
Quite a few people recently have been claiming that Vedic Hindu’s stole the ‘Zero’ from Mayans. The argument is, if anyone has to get the credit then it should be the Mayans who are the real inventors.
Let us examine this claim:
It is true that Mayans had a sign for ‘something’ that vaguely resembles zero. However, to claim that Hindu’s stole it from Mayans is rather a big leap of logic.
Here is a Mayan Numeric Chart. (http://www.mesoamericas.com/images/numerals.jpg)
Let us take two examples
(a) Number 1440 is represented in Mayan system as
The logic is: (4*360) + (0 *20) + (7*1)
(b) Number 2524 is represented in Mayan system as
The logic is: (7*360) + (0 *20) + (4*1)
This system suffered from the same problem that the Roman system had. How do you add two numbers together on paper? To continue our above example, the equation 2524 + 1440 would look like following in Mayan system.
Obviously, there is no way to add these two figures. Further, if you cannot add then advanced operations such as multiplications and divisions are out of question.
The question is then why did Mayans invented the symbol for zero?
For Mayans (and rest of the world) the only way one could calculate was using Abacus. The number system was just to record the results of Abacus. Adding two figures on paper was just impossible.
All this changed with the invention of zero by Vedic Hindus. Now you will see why Hindu zero is so drastically different from Mayan zero.
Hindus formed the rules for zero. Add/subtract zero to any figure and it remains the same. Multiply anything by zero and you get a zero. Divide anything by zero and you get infinity. They created a numeric system to the base 10 and suddenly it was very easy to write any conceivable number using the system. Though Mayan system was an improvement over Greek and Roman system, they still had to invent new signs for large numbers. Compare this with Hindu system where all you need to know were the symbols from 0-9
Once Hindus defined the rules, adding numbers all of a sudden became plain and simple as 2524 + 1440 = 3964.
Now the question is what is it that allowed Hindus to invent zero? The answer lies in Hindu philosophy.
(Please do read my article http://www.systomatics.info/?p=854 that discusses development of mathematics and priest class among other things)
At that point, of time, Vedic Hindu philosophy was the only philosophy that had the concept of void or zero. The concept of nothingness was completely foreign to rest of the world. This theory of ‘nothingness’ had been practiced by Hindus for a long time.
Copying a random reference from web here:
http://www.desitip.com/servlet/drenderer?sel=nasadiya
nasadiya sukta – Rig Veda 10:129
Then there was neither existence nor non-existence.
There was no space(air?) nor sky beyond.
What covered everything? Where? In whose protection?
Was there water, deep and bottomless?
There was neither death nor immortality then,
There was no sign of night or day.
That One breathed all by self without any outside support,
Other than that there was nothing else beyond.
….
As you can see from the above sukta, the Hindu’s were well acquainted with nothingness for a long time.
(I am not claiming that Vedic Hindu’s were extra brilliant, there is always an historical accident behind every achievement. The skeptical should read a book called ‘Outliers’)
Coming back to the main discussion:
Let us consider two proven facts:
(a) The concept of nothingness can be seen in the earliest Veda’s
(b) This concept was foreign to all other contemporary philosophies.
What does (a) and (b) tell us?
They tell us that these philosophies originated in isolation of each other.
This is why ‘Invention of Zero’ disproves the ‘Aryan Invasion’ theory.
