For many months, I have been walking toward zero.
A universal round marker of nothingness, of nonexistence, of emptiness, the mathematical zero has been with us for so long that we forget its revolutionary qualities.
Zero is our ultimate point of origin: the starting point for our measurements of temperature, weight, speed, etc. Zeros also give us our decimal numbering system, without which modern computational science and ranking could not exist. (Imagining the epitome of excellence being a 9, not a 10, seems impossible.) Zeros offer us infinite precision when arrayed to the right of a decimal point. They allow us to dial the operator.
Some of the oldest zeros in the world are inscribed on a stone slab inside an ancient temple in the north Indian city of Gwalior.
The temple, called Chaturbhuj, is dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu. The zeros in question—two of them—appear within two numbers chiseled in the text: 270 (a figure measuring a plot of donated land) and 50 (citing a benefactor’s flower garland offerings). These zeros are about 1,200 years old.
I have been plodding to Chaturbhuj temple since crossing the Pakistan border into India, some 950 miles ago. I have threaded Punjab wheat fields, scaled the dunes of Rajasthan, and skidded down the red stone gullies of Madhya Pradesh to see the zeros. I have been anticipating these primordial circular symbols not just for their historical value but also for their larger relationship to absences.
Scholars believe that the first use of a “0” to connote nothing rose not from math or science but from Asian spirituality. Nullity, the zeroing of earthly desires, called sunya, the Sanskrit root word for zero, is a positive state in Buddhism. It is a liberating emptiness devoid of human suffering. As long as 2,000 years ago, Indian statisticians discovered that this concept worked beautifully in mathematics. Centuries later, it was the Arabs who spread zeros across the Old World along the Silk Road.
I visit Chaturbhuj with a former student of mine, Camille Framroze.
The temple sits atop a steep hill. Framroze and I climb the worn flagstone roads. We ask for the “zero temple.” Few know it. When we at last locate the shrine, tucked beneath a fortress wall, it proves an anticlimax, an underwhelming sanctuary not much bigger than a walk-in closet—a too-modest monument for a founding concept of civilization.
“Can you see them?” I ask Framroze, who squints hard at the mathematically famous slab of stone through a locked protective grille.
But Framroze does not spot any antique zeros. Nor do I. Nor does every other random passerby drawn by a tiny sign that states without further explanation, "ZERO: The Oldest Existing Zero in Gwalior Region."
My pilgrimage that began with nothing ends with nothing. It has been for naught.
Some of the oldest zeros in the world are inscribed on a stone slab inside an ancient temple in the north Indian city of Gwalior. Paul Salopek goes in search of them.
Out of Eden Walk
