Ramification of the Indian Concept of Void/Śūnya

Brahmagupta opened a new vista of Indian mathematics on the foundation of algebra in his Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta. He was the first in history to define zero from an algebraic standpoint. The word riktaka (destitute or devoid of from Amarakoṣa) in conformity with the Pāninian rule invisibility is an indication of absence (adarśana lopaḥ) and the specialty inhering term ākāśa in the Vaiśeṣika philosophy due to Kaṇāda played vital roles in developing his rules relating to zero. He defined the first three fundamental rules (addition, subtraction, and multiplication) of numbers from the algebraic standpoint, but for the division of a number by zero as a deadlock, and left the point with the remark ‘divided by that’ (tacchedaṃ). This incomplete Indian work on algebra found its way to Arabia and later to Pre-Renaissance Europe via Toledo in Latin retranslation from Arabic. After more than four hundred years, Bhāskarācārya (b. 1114 CE) crossed the bar. He chose the word tuccha (trifling) from the same Amarakoṣa and resorted to Nāgārjuna’s idea of nirvāṇa, the end as well as the way of approaching the state of the zero-attachment to mundane affairs and explained the point with an example of the momentary (instantaneous) motion (tatkālikigati) of the fast-moving moon. He thus got at the concept of the differential discovered in Europe almost five hundred years later (cf. the beginning of Calculus due to Leibniz and Newton).