Hindu Achievements in Exact Science: A Study in the History of Scientific Development c7.10

c7.10

The decimal system was known to Aryabhata (A.D. 476) and Brahmagupta (A.D. 598–660), and fully described by Bhaskaracharya (1114). In Subandhu's "Vasavadatta," a Sanskrit prose romance (A.D. 550–606?) the stars are described as zero. In "Vyasa-bhasya," also, the system is referred to. The transformation of substance in chemical fusion through the "unequal distribution of forces" is there illustrated by a mathematical analogy: "Even as the same figure '1' stands for a hundred in the place of hundred, for ten in the place of ten, and for a unit in the place of a unit." The "Vyasa-bhasya" cannot have been composed later than the sixth century A.D. The decimal system was therefore known to the Hindus long before its appearance in the writings of the Arabs or Græco-Syrians.⁵⁹