Poorna- The story of zero by a cipher

Poorna- The story of zero by a cipher

By G. MANJUSAINATH

ॐ पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदं, पूर्णात पूर्णमुदच्यते.

पूर्णस्य पूर्णमादाय, पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते.

-- इशावास्योपनिषद

Om poornamadah poornamidam

Poornaat poornamudachyate

Poornasya poornamaadaya

Poornamevaavashishyate

-- Ishaavasyopanishad

“That is infinite. This is infinite. What has come out of the infinite is also infinite.
When the infinite is taken out of the infinite, the infinite still remains infinite.”

Other than ghosts and demons if something would scare me during my childhood days it was mathematics. So much aversion I had for this subject that the very mention of it would cause me a kind of nausea but my maths-loving dad was hell-bent to churn a Ramanujan, a CV Raman, an Einstein and finally a James Watt out of his frail little child overnight.

But, as fate had it, the son turned out to be a paper-tiger. Before making my way into the journalism, I had some six years of meandering after my father finally stopped hoping against the hopes and allowed me to go stray just like a bull with trident mark, grabbing green groceries in the market. It was during that course of time when I developed a fascination for astrology and a subsequent realisation that I missed many things by ignoring mathematics. I must confess that I have seen merely a few droplets of the vast oceanic maths. While studying astrology I stumbled upon the above-mentioned verse from Ishavasyopanishad and simply fell for it. I have no hesitation to say that next lines are cipher’s shallow claims of deciphering zero.

To my mind, the first verse from Ishavasyopanishad is revolutionary in a sense that it is responsible for the development of modern mathematics and science. The verse which speaks about the nature of omnipresent God, said to have had inspired the seventh century mathematician, Bhaskaracharya-I, to translate it into mathematics. He devised a new number called Poorna or zero with no face value but great place value to make the mathematical numbers infinite.

Bhaskaracharya chose a circle to denote the nature of God because it is neither a line with a head and tail, nor a triangle with conjunctions of lines. An unending loop, the circle represents the immortal nature of God.

The number zero completely fits in the definition of infinite God as described in the above-mentioned verse. "If you add zero to zero, the result remains zero and if you subtract zero from zero, the result again remains zero." However, zero also signifies ego and desires, which have no value as such except for creating vacuum in life and keeping a person busy to run after something which does not exist! For example, the variety of numbers is only between zero and nine but after nine, ‘one’ comes once again to run behind the vacuum called zero and gets the name Ten to head for infinite.

Did you ever wonder why ten comes after nine and not after five, six, seven or eight? You may find it interesting that the objective behind devising a scientific numerical system was to study astronomy and astrology. In fact, in olden days cosmos and celestial bodies inspired people to calculate their movements and the distance between them in view of the prevalent belief system that these heavenly bodies have a bearing on everything on the earth. It is believed in Astrology and numerology that the nine digits represent the nine planets of astrology namely Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Rahu (dragon's head) and Ketu (dragon's tail).

The claim that Bhaskaracharya was born somewhere in the border regions of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, seems to have some basis. The local Telugu populace of Andhra Pradesh, particularly in the regions of Andhra, prefer calling zero as 'Poorna' unlike other parts of the country where it is called Shoonya, may be to immortalise the scientific legacy left behind by the great mathematician.

So the next time if somebody muddies a pristine forum in a rabid and archaic manner only to tell you that your top floor has got nothing then stay cool, chant the above Mantra and say: "Nothing is everything, for I know, Shoonya is Poorna'.