When the aṅkapalli,[[145]] the decimal-place system of writing numbers, was perfected, the tenth symbol was called the śūnyabindu, generally shortened to śūnya (the void). Brockhaus[[146]] has well said that if there was any invention for which the Hindus, by all their philosophy and religion, were well fitted, it was the invention of a symbol for zero. This making of nothingness the crux of a tremendous achievement was a step in complete harmony with the genius of the Hindu.
It is generally thought that this śūnya as a symbol was not used before about 500 A.D., although some writers have placed it earlier.[[147]] Since Āryabhaṭa gives our common method of extracting roots, it would seem that he may have known a decimal notation,[[148]] although he did not use the characters from which our numerals are derived.[[149]] Moreover, he frequently speaks of the
void.[[150]] If he refers to a symbol this would put the zero as far back as 500 A.D., but of course he may have referred merely to the concept of nothingness.
A little later, but also in the sixth century, Varāha-Mihira[[151]] wrote a work entitled Bṛhat Saṃhitā[[152]] in which he frequently uses śūnya in speaking of numerals, so that it has been thought that he was referring to a definite symbol. This, of course, would add to the probability that Āryabhaṭa was doing the same.
It should also be mentioned as a matter of interest, and somewhat related to the question at issue, that Varāha-Mihira used the word-system with place value[[153]] as explained above.
The first kind of alphabetic numerals and also the word-system (in both of which the place value is used) are plays upon, or variations of, position arithmetic, which would be most likely to occur in the country of its origin.[[154]]
At the opening of the next century (c. 620 A.D.) Bāṇa[[155]] wrote of Subandhus's Vāsavadattā as a celebrated work,
and mentioned that the stars dotting the sky are here compared with zeros, these being points as in the modern Arabic system. On the other hand, a strong argument against any Hindu knowledge of the symbol zero at this time is the fact that about 700 A.D. the Arabs overran the province of Sind and thus had an opportunity of knowing the common methods used there for writing numbers. And yet, when they received the complete system in 776 they looked upon it as something new.[[156]] Such evidence is not conclusive, but it tends to show that the complete system was probably not in common use in India at the beginning of the eighth century. On the other hand, we must bear in mind the fact that a traveler in Germany in the year 1700 would probably have heard or seen nothing of decimal fractions, although these were perfected a century before that date. The élite of the mathematicians may have known the zero even in Āryabhaṭa's time, while the merchants and the common people may not have grasped the significance of the novelty until a long time after. On the whole, the evidence seems to point to the west coast of India as the region where the complete system was first seen.[[157]] As mentioned above, traces of the numeral words with place value, which do not, however, absolutely require a decimal place-system of symbols, are found very early in Cambodia, as well as in India.
Concerning the earliest epigraphical instances of the use of the nine symbols, plus the zero, with place value, there