Alberto Pelissero

Much Ado about Nothing: Unsystematic Notes on sunya

Please don't ask us the slogan that could open worlds to You, only some syllables, dry and bent like a branch. Today only this we can tell You: what we are not, what we do not want.

Eugenio Montale, Cuttle-fish Bones

Sunya means 'void', 'bereft', and in mathematical scientific literature, 'zero'. It derives from suna, being the past passive participle of root svi,' to grow', 'to swell', according to Panini (7.2.14). So suna means swelled, swollen,increased, grown. According to Rgvedapratisakhya (14.2) it indicates a fault in Vedic recital, consisting in an utterance with a swollen mouth. The term sunya occurs within Upanisadic literature in the Maitryupanisad (2.4; 6.31; 7.4), together with other epithets referred to brahman, epithets that mean 'pure', 'clear', pacified' (suddha, puta, santa). Etymologically should therefore mean a void space, a hole determined by a borderless opening, by an unlimited disclosing. According to lexicographers (Amarakosa 3.1.56), its synonyms are 'sapless', 'meaningless', 'void', 'vane', 'hollow' (asara, phalgu, vasika, tuccha, riktaka). This kind of voidness is conceived first of all as a sort of deprivation, as we can see from a well-known literary 'good saying' (subhasita) centred around the term sunya:

'Void is the house for he who is sonless, void is the time for he who is friendless, void are the four cardinal points for he who is silly, void is the whole world for he who is poor' (Sudraka, Mrcchakatika 1.8). The reference to the cardinal points (dis) is not at all a trivial one, because it explains why the term sunya could be made synonym with 'ethereal space', 'atmospheric space', 'heaven' (akasa, kha, vyoman).

The abstract derivate sunyata is recorded in Buddhist literature, mainly of the mahayana type, first of all in Nagarjuna, as meaning 'voidness', 'the fact of being void', and even (though this kind of translation is sub iudice) as 'vacuity', 'emptiness'. The mathematical zero cannot be compared to any other number, being their very precondition, and in consideration of such a meaning it is tendentially compared with the concept of infinite (ananta). Which of the three main shades of meaning of sunya first suggested the other two? Did the mathematical, the grammatical, or the Buddhist philosophical meaning come first? There is a great deal of debate on this question. First of all it may be noted that, even if the concept of zero grade is important and well-known within Indian grammatical tradition (vyakarana), the term sunya is actually never employed in this context. Phonic zero, intended as absence of any sound whatsoever, to be found in alternation with sound, especially within vocalic gradation (apophony), is widely known, and used as the apophonic grade. But we must note that the grades known in Western use as normal or full grade and extended or lengthened grade, both correspond to a Sanskrit technical term, respectively guna (a, e, o) and vrddhi (a, ai, au), which among other things can be taught as a replacement of a, i, u respectively (A 1.1.3). By contrast the grade that we call weak or reduced or zero grade does not correspond to a univocal Sanskrit technical word, because it is treated exactly as the other zero-replacements of phonemes, and, what is most important, it never takes the name of sunya. It is not a mere chance that what we call zero grade is not described by Indian grammarians in positive words, but only as an exception, subject to specific rules of application, to guna and vrddhi grades (e.g. A 1.1.5 suffixes with K and N markers): it is impossible to describe an absence, a deprivation, a limitation in positive terms. The technical term used in such cases is lopa (e.g. 1.1.4; 1.1.62), a name given to the meaning of adarsanam 'non-perception' by means of metarule 1.1.60.

Therefore, even if we cannot rule out the possibility that the apophonic zero could be the base of the mathematical zero, it is only the latter that takes the name of sunya. The doubt whether or not the philosophical use could precede the mathematical one, still remains. Even in the field of architecture, the value of the void asserts itself: it is sufficient to think of what we define as the sanctum (Indians call it garbhagrha, 'house of the embryo') in the sanctuary of Siva Nataraja in Chidambaram, enclosing the signum 'made of space' (akasalinga), technically avoid space, that represents the icon being worshipped by the devotees.

Within the mathematical field, zero is the base of the system of numerical positional notation on the decimal scale: it is the void space that permits the passage from units to tens and so on. The Yajurveda (Vajasaneyisamhita 17.2) enumerates the names of the powers of ten starting from 100 eka up to 1012 parardha. The synonyms of zero to be found in mathematical, astronomical and astrological texts (jyotihsastra), are all specifications of a semantic field that generally covers the concept of 'space'. But it is a large sphere that combines different notions, and is variously declined as ethereal space, surrounding space, void space, atmospheric space (akasa, ambara, kha, gagana). Other kinds of synonyms are more interesting, because they range from an apparent antonym meaning 'full' (purna), to the term for 'point' (bindu), up to the little circle used in writing as a sign for zero (chidra, randhra, both words meaning 'hole'). It is possibly not a mere chance that the first quotation of zero as a mathematical symbol is to be found within a metrical text (Pihgala, Chandahsutra 8.28-31). Obviously, quotations from mathematical literature are numerous (Aryabhatiya 1.2; Pañcasiddhantika 1.17; Brhatksetrasamasa 1.69-71; Tattvarthadhigamasutra 3.11).

At least in the Vedic period, within priestly circles the value of fullness...