"shoonyah": "Lord Zero" of the Vishnu-Sahasranamam

[Guest guest]

Dear friends,

 

One of the 'nAmA-s' in the Sahasranamam that I'm always intrigued by

is the name "shoonyah" given to Vishnu and as it apppears in shlOka

no: 79 --

 

suvarna-varna hEmAngO varAngas-chandanAngadI

veeraha vishamah shoonyO grutAshI-rachala-chalah

 

The Sanskrit word "soonya" means "zero", "nullity", "cipher",

"emptiness".

 

It would strike anyone as extremely odd that the Sahasranamam should

choose to call Lord Vishnu as 'Zero'! You can understand God being

called "ekah", the One Supreme Being. The essence of all monistic

theism lies in the belief that God is One (the Upanishad says,

"sayaschAyam pUrUshE; yaschAsAvA'dityE; sa ekah").

 

You can understand too God being addressed as "anantah", the

Infinite, as in the Sahasranamam stanza---

 

kAma devah kAmapAlah kaamI kAntah krutAgamah

anirdEshyavapu-vishnur-vIrO' anantah dhananjayah (stanza 70)

 

Since God is Immeasurable it seems plainly alright to name Him

"anantah", the Infinite. But how is one to explain hailing the

Almighty as 'shoonyah', the Cipher?

 

There is a view that "If Infinity is immeasurable, so is Zero".

Mathematically speaking, one could define 'zero' to be

'anti-infinity'. If 'Infinity' is immeasurable plenitude, 'Zero' is

immeasurable emptiness. If you were to imagine, say, an interminable

series of values, from zero to infinity, floating somewhere out there

in endless space, then, surely, Zero would be at one end of it while

Infinity would be found at the other end... wherever, that is, the

two ends may be found, if at all. And if you reflect upon it deeply,

that would make out 'Zero' and 'Infinity' to be two sides of the same

un-graspable coin.

 

By the same logic, you might say the Sanskrit "anantah" and "shoonya"

might seem antonymous but in reality they mean the same thing.

Hailing God Almighty as 'Lord Infinity' is hence no different from

hailing Him 'Lord Zero'.

 

Incredible logic notwithstanding, we know for a fact however that the

'Infinite' and the 'Cipher' are never really the same thing. None of

us would be willing to exchange one for the other if it came to a

real choice between the two. If I go up, for instance, to a venerable

'achArya' or 'guru' and prostrate at his feet, I would expect him to

shower his benediction upon me saying, "May you be blessed in life,

my son, with God's infinite Grace!". If instead the man were to say,

"May God's zero grace be thine in life!", the blessing would stand

transformed into a vicious curse, wouldn't it?

 

*******

 

So then, why is God, who is Infinite Being, being called "shoonya", a

Zero -- the very opposite of infinity? The traditional commentators

of the Vishnu-Sahasranamam offer us some explanation in their

respective "bhAshyA-s".

 

Let's take up Adi Sankara's "sahasranamam bhAshyA" first.

 

In his commentary, Sri Sankara (6th CE) explains "shoonya" as an apt

'nAmA' for God, the Supreme Brahman, who is "nirguNa" -- i.e. the

Being who is totally devoid of any qualities or attributes. In other

words, according to Sankara's school of metaphysics, God is "guNa

shoonyan".

 

According to this explanation, God transcends all attributes. His

qualities like omnipotence, omniscience etc. only serve to help us in

ascertaining His reality but they do not 'per se' define Him. The

truth of God's existence cannot be grasped by us with reference to

His qualities or 'guNA' alone, says Sankara. Brahman is to be

apprehended as an Absolute Being who stands far apart from and quite

beyond any of His infinitely ("anantah") great qualities -- i.e. He

is 'nirguNa-brahman', a Being without qualities, a Being with 'zero'

qualities. Hence it is fit to call Him "shoonyah".

 

Let's turn to the other explanation found in the commentary of Sri

Parashara Bhattar (11th CE) on the Vishnu Sahasranamam titled

"bhagavadh-guNa-darpaNam".

 

Bhattar explains "shoonyah" in the typical way of the school of

VisishtAdvaita theology. According to this school, God is the Supreme

Abode of all auspicious attributes. The Almighty is full of

innumerable good qualities like "gnyAna", "bala", "aiswarya",

"vIrya", "shakti" and "tejas". In VisishtAdvaita, God is

"ananta-kalyANa-guna-gaNaan" (to use a famous expression of Sri

RamanujAchArya) -- i.e. Brahman is Being with infinite number of

happy and wholesome attributes. The theology next states that God, by

corollary, is also totally devoid of inauspicious, un-wholesome or

negative qualities.

 

According to Bhattar, in so far as, Brahman is replete with

infinitely good attributes, He is to be known as "anantah". And in so

far as He is absolutely bereft of defective qualities, He is to be

known as the God of "zero-defects" -- in other words, He is

"shoonyah".

 

>From a purely theological standpoint both explanations above are

equally valid and wholly satisfying (depending, of course, upon

which school of Vedanta -- Sankara's or Ramanuja's -- one is

predisposed towards). All the same, for one who is not steeped in the

various nuances and niceties of Vedantic theology, (especially for

one who cannot really appreciate the technical difference between the

metaphysical "nirguNa-" and "savisesha-" Brahman), the explanations

of AdiSankara and Parashara Bhattar for "shoonya" might only seem to

resemble the case of the proverbial bottle that got described as

"half-empty" by one and "half-full" by another.

 

---------------

 

Even leaving theological considerations aside, one can still regard

Zero to be a remarkably apt 'nAma' for the Almighty. Common knowledge

of the world around us reveals how all-powerful the concept of Zero,

"shoonya", truly is. When we look at the history of Zero, we realize

why 'shoonya' is almighty indeed!

 

Until about 1500 years ago nobody in the world outside India could

count numbers beyond 9 without enormous difficulty. The entire

Graeco-Roman Western world knew nothing about the Hindu-Arabic system

of numerals that prevails in the entire world today. The Romans

depended upon alphabets to denote numbers -- such as I, X and C or

with V, L and D. In their system the number 32 had to be written, for

example, as XXXII but writing a number like 3200 or 32000 for the

Greeks and Romans presented a huge, often insurmountable problem! For

several centuries the Graeco-Roman civilization struggled with this

cumbersome system of numbering. It was the principal reason why for

almost a thousand years Western mathematics hardly advanced beyond

being a method of elementary counting and mensuration using crude

devices like the abacus. The Greeks and Romans had no knowledge of

how to deal with large numbers, ratios, series, complex algebraic

functions and calculations -- all child's play for any high-school

student today. Western thought simply stagnated for ages since it

could just not grapple with the mathematical problem of large numbers

and calculations.

 

Somewhere between 1000 and 1200 AD, the Western world came in contact

with the Arab world and that was when the Hindu-Arabic system of

numerals opened the eyes of the Europeans to a whole new world of

mathematical thought.

 

The Arabs had for long borrowed and been using the Hindu system of

numerals that had been in use in ancient India for more than a

thousand years earlier. The Hindu system did not use alphabets but a

simple but versatile scheme of numeric symbols starting from "Zero"

-- the famous 'shoonya' -- and ending with 9. These symbolic numerals

made it so easy to represent and calculate numerate values anywhere

from zero to infinity in quick time. They enabled complex functions

and calculations. They made it possible to represent the most

formidable series of values by a mere formula which in turn

facilitated further complex mathematical functions! The Western world

realized -- for the first time ever -- the power of the Hindu numeral

system: a power that became the inspiration for all the mathematical

advancements to later come out of Europe: algebra, ratios, surds,

functions such as squares, cube and root, series and progressions,

logarithmic tables, quadratic equations... and so on and so forth.

 

It was the power of Zero, "shoonya", indeed that made the European

Renaissance possible --- the Renaissance that eventually gave birth

to all the wonderful discoveries of modern mathematics such as

Fabionacci series, Pascal's Probability theory and even Newton's

Calculus! "The concept of Zero unleashed something more profound than

just an enhanced method of counting and calculating". Zero

revolutionized the old modes of human thought. It meant firstly

people could use only ten digits, from 0 to 9, to perform every

conceivable calculation and to write any conceivable number.

Secondly, it opened up a whole new world of possibilities for

abstract human thinking that had been simply unthinkable before!

 

********************

 

How did the ancient Hindus discover such a powerful concept as

"shoonya" while the rest of the world remained ignorant of 'Zero' for

ages?

 

To grasp the concept of "shoonya" required a very high level of

intellectual and spiritual advancement as what prevailed in India

during and after the Vedic period. As the English philosopher,

A.N.Whitehead wrote: "The point about zero is that we do not need to

use it in the operations of daily life. No one goes out to buy zero

fish or eggs. [but] It is in a way the most civilized of all the

cardinals, and its use is only forced on us by the needs of

cultivated modes of thought". Vedic mathematics and astronomy of

those ancient times clearly bear evidence to the highly sophisticated

conceptual and ideological skills that our Indian forbears possessed.

There was no doubt at all that the ancient Vedic Indians who gave to

the whole world the idea of "shoonya" were indeed masters of the most

civilized and "cultivated modes of thought".

 

*************************

 

There was a great mathematician in India who lived in the 10th

century CE, He was BhAskarAchArya. He wrote several pioneering

treatises (Sanskrit) on Vedic mathematics. In one of the treatises,

it is said, he wrote a small dedication : "To the Supreme Brahman,

who is Infinity, I offer my salutation". BhAskarAchArya used the

Sanskrit word "khAhara" to denote God as 'Infinity' in the

dedication. It is derived from "kham" which means 'Zero' and "hara"

meaning "divided". The word "khAhara" was meant to indicate that God

who is Infinity is related to Zero.

 

BhAskarAchArya was the first mathematician to reveal to the world the

intimate relationship between "shoonya" and "anantah", between Zero

and Infinity. Any quantity divided by "shoonya" is equal to Infinity,

he said. Take a value like 16 and divide it ("harah") with

progressively decreasing divisors. What happens? The quotient

progressively enlarges. For e.g. 16 divided by 4 = 4; and 16 divided

by 2 = 8; and eventually when 16 is divided by 0 it equals

'Infinity'! Every quantity, every value in the world, when divided by

"shoonya", results in the same quotient or result viz. Infinity,

"anantah".

 

Such is the mighty power of Zero that it can raise and relate all

values on earth to the exalted state of Infinity -- that very same

state in which God Almighty, the Vishnu of the sacred 'Sahasranama',

is said to eternally reside and rule!

 

Regards,

dAsan,

Sudarshan

 

 

 

 

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