The Shoonya-to-Zero Story: The Mismatched Translation Solved!
[...Continued from Chapter 1...]
Chapter 2. The Shoonya-to-Zero Story: The Mismatched Translation Solved!
Now, how did a translation of śūnya twist into sifr?
The Graeco-Romans, Arabs, Spanish, and other traders-thinkers who came to India were gifted enough to understand the concept of zero. They effectively studied it in the lap of Hind - a foreign land. They also spread it to all the corners of the world, including the hollow circular symbol and the base 10 numeric. Zero, positional calculations, and base-10 numerics formed their raison d’être.
Were they then unable to pronounce or translate “shoonya”?
Turns out, they may have been! Turns out, the question of “Shoonya-to-Zero” is the wrong choice to audit the translation! Turns out, xenophilia was at its zealous zenith! It turns out that the savants who came to India at the time were translating another word - a more pregnant synonym - to have given us the modern zero!
What is the More Tenable, Semantic Etymology of “Zero”?
In the early 3rd century BCE, most of the seaborne trades of India were focused in Lothal of Gujarat, Western India. Oceanographers today acknowledge the deep knowledge the Harappans possessed to have made the world's first dock in Lothal. [1]
But by the last century Before the Common Era, maritime commercial traffic spread across Southern India. The ports of Muziris, Korkai, Kaveripattinam, Arikamedu, and later Kollam were more accessible to Greeks, Arabs, and Chinese vessels. [2] [3] [4] [5]
Proto-Dravidian languages, by and large, Tamil dominated South India since around the 3rd millennium BCE. Tamil is also the language in use today that has retained the words and other characteristics of its Dravidian ancestors. [6] [7]
சுழியம் (sūḻiyam), பூஜ்ஜியம் (pūjyam), and சைவர் (śaivar) are the words for zero in Tamil. [8] The origins of the first two words may be clear from our earlier discussion. The word “Śaivar” comes from Shiva (śiva).
The word is commonly understood today as that of a god, a “God”, or “the God” in modern culture. [9] [10] [11] Deeper studies of history indicate that Shiva may not have been a deity at all. [12]
The word “śiva” contains two syllables. “Śi” means “not” and “va” means “that”. “Śiva” therefore means “that which is not”. (Similar is “vāna”, another word for sky or zero. It translates to “that” and “not” or “that which is not”.)
Shiva is venerated as a concept that is not affected by anything by ancient texts. [13] Shiva is equated with Brahman in recent research. [14] The word is found to be related to the “Ultimate Reality” itself. [15] [16] [17] Monotheistic Abrahamic traditions bow to the only God of “Abraham” as the “source” and as a “patriarch”. [18] [19] [20]
Historians conclude that different iconographies of Shiva may only be accounted for by yogic knowledge. [21] “Yōga” is defined as the union with the highest. [22] The Linga Purana equates Yoga, Nirvana, and Shiva. Both Nirvana and Shiva translate to nothingness. Scholar Narayanakantha relates Shiva to the highest union (yōg). Lakshmanadesikendra and other scholars connect the Self, Shiva, and the primordial Self. [23] [24]
Now, we saw that சைவர் (śaivar) is a word for zero in Tamil and that the word comes from Shiva (śiva). [25] The /r/ is commonly used as an honorific in Tamil. [26] Also, linguistic and phonetic studies show that the sounds /v/ and /f/ are easily interchanged in pronunciation. [27] Tamil originally did not have the /f/ sound and adopted it from loanwords. [28]
It is, through and through, possible that zero, cipher, zevero, zefiro, ṣafira, and ṣifr may have arisen from the ancient Dravidian root word “Śaivar” and/or Sanskrit root word “Śiva”. It is far more possible than ‘ṣifr’ arising from ‘śūnya’. ‘Śiva’ and ‘śūnya’ are synonyms.
Lock, stock, and barrel! The ways of knowledge, language, and trade!
We talk of tolerance. And our ancestors millennia ago were more cosmopolitan and global than we imagined.
Allophilia! Allophilia! Allophilia!
Honorary Mention: Zeno of Elea
Zeno of Elea may be remembered at this time for his contradictions and paradoxes. Only nine of over forty of Zeno’s paradoxes are known today. [29] The name “Zeno” itself means “unknown” or “foreign”. (We see “zeno” in the context, and we read ‘zero’ or ‘śūnya’!) His paradoxes are fundamentally based on the ancient Greek notion of "How can not being be?". [30] Zeno’s paradoxes show us that the Greeks were still not accepting of zero in the 5th century BCE. [31] It may have still been a foreign concept.
Trip Again, Shall We?
Now we go back again in time to see how and why zero has maintained its root Indian meaning and intent. Yes, we did just fly past a millennium and a half from India to Europe and Arabia through the history of mathematics. But the intent of these words promises that the next trip on the wings of language from modern-day words to its origins will exhilarate even more. This trip is to the origin of the Universe!
[...to be continued in Chapter 3...]
References and Citations:
[1] S. R. Rao (1985). Lothal. Archaeological Survey of India. pp. 27-28.
[2] Halsall, Paul. "Ancient History Sourcebook: The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea: Travel and Trade in the Indian Ocean by a Merchant of the First Century". Fordham University.
[3] Ring, Trudy; Watson, Noelle; Schellinger, Paul (12 November 2012). Page No.710, International Dictionary of Historic Places: Asia and Oceania. ISBN 9781136639791.
[4] Sastri, K. A. Nilakanta (1958) [1935]. History of South India (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
[5] Kollam - Mathrubhumi. Archived at the Wayback Machine
[6] Southworth, Franklin C. (2005), Linguistic archaeology of South Asia, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-33323-8
[7] Mahadevan, Iravatham (2003), Early Tamil Epigraphy from the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D., Harvard Oriental Series, Volume 62, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-01227-5
[8] Names for the number 0 - Wikipedia
[9] Issitt, Micah Lee; Main, Carlyn (2014). Hidden Religion: The Greatest Mysteries and Symbols of the World's Religious Beliefs. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1610694780.
[10] Flood, Gavin (1996). An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521438780.
[11] Sharma, Arvind (2000). Classical Hindu Thought: An Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195644418.
[12] Keay, John (2000). India: A History. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 0802137970.
[13] Chinmayananda, Swami (2002). Vishnusahasranama. Central Chinmaya Mission Trust. ISBN 978-8175972452.
[14] "Svetasvatara Upanishad - Chap 3 the Highest Reality". Archived from the original on 1 October 2022.
[15] Ludo Rocher (1986), The Puranas, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, ISBN 978-3447025225, p. 23 with footnotes
[16] EO James (1997), The Tree of Life, Brill Academic, ISBN 978-9004016125, pp. 150–153.
[17] Gregor Maehle (2009), Ashtanga Yoga, New World, ISBN 978-1577316695, p. 17; for Sanskrit, see: Skanda Purana Shankara Samhita Part 1, Verses 1.8.20–21 (Sanskrit)
[18] McCarter, P. Kyle (2000). "Abraham". In Freedman, Noel David; Myers, Allen C. (eds.). Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Amsterdam University Press. pp. 8–10. ISBN 978-90-5356-503-2.
[19] Abraham, the Nations, and the Hagarites: Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Perspectives on Kinship with Abraham. (2010). Netherlands: Brill.
[20] Levenson, Jon Douglas (2012). Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691155692.
[21] McEvilley, Thomas (1 March 1981). "An Archaeology of Yoga". Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics. 1: 51. doi:10.1086/RESv1n1ms20166655. ISSN 0277-1322. S2CID 192221643.
[22] Yoga - Wikipedia
[23] Vasudeva, Somadeva. The Yoga of the Mālinīvijayottara Tantra, Critical edition, translation & notes.
[24] Mrgendratantravrtti, yp 2a
[25] Names for the number 0 - Wikipedia
[26] Dana, Leo Paul (2007). Handbook of Research on Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship: A Co-evolutionary View on Resource Management. ISBN 9781847209962.
[27] Baker, A., Goldstein, S. (2008). Pronunciation Pairs Teacher's Book. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
[28] Keane, E. (2004). Tamil. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34(1), 111-116. doi:10.1017/S0025100304001549
[29] Proclus, Commentary on Plato's Parmenides, p. 29.
[30] Huggett, Nick (2019). "Zeno's Paradoxes". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2019 ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Archived from the original on 10 January 2021.
[31] Zeno of Elea - Greek philosopher and mathematician
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