Bindu

A fascinating feature of the zero symbol in India is the richness of the concept it represents. Whereas the Babylonian tradition had a one dimensional approach to the zero symbol, seeing it simply as a sign for a vacant slot in an accountant’s register, the Indian mind saw it as part of a winder philosophical spectrum of meanings for nothingness and the void. ……

BINDU is used to describe the most insignificant geometrical object, a single point or a circle shrunk down to its center where it has no finite extent. Literally, it signifies just a ‘point’, but it symbolizes the essence of the Universe before it materialized into the solid world of appearances that we experience. It represents the uncreated Universe from which all things can be created. This creative potential was revealed by means of a simple analogy. For, by its motion, a single dot can generate lines, by whose motion can be generated planes, by whose motion can be generated all of three-dimensional space around us. The BINDU was the Nothing from which everything could flow.

The revealing thing we learn from the Indian conception of zero is that the “sunya” which included such a wealth of concepts. Its literal meaning was ‘empty’ or ‘void’ but it embraced the notions of space, vacuousness, insignificance and non-being as well as worthlessness and absence. It possesses a nexus of complexity from which unpredictable associations could emerge without having to be subjected to a searching logical analysis to ascertain that coherence within a formal logical structure. In this sense the Indian developments looks almost modern in its liberal free associations. At it heart is a specific numerical and notational function which it performs without seeking to constrain the other ways in which the idea can be used and extended. This is what we would expect to find in modern art and literature. An image or an idea may exist with a well-defined form and meaning in a specific science, yet be continually elaborated or reinvented by artists working with different aims and visions. ~ Pages 37 & 38 (The Book of Nothing)