From hero to zero

Ancient India gave the world its number system, anticipated Galileo's heliocentric theory by a millennium and spread its culture from Egypt to Siberia—only to be almost entirely forgotten. It's past time to restore it to its rightful place in history

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SUDDENLY, zero vanished. Or rather, its origins did. Most people believe it was invented by the Arabs—and they are wrong. Although the notion did come to us via Islamic Golden Age scholars, it was developed in ancient India. 'The great Indian mathematicians who are the equal of Pythagoras and Archimedes, like Aryabhata and Brahmagupta, are completely unknown in the West,' explains historian William Dalrymple. 'I have said their names to audiences full of Oxford dons and only the Indians in the audience have ever heard of these people.'

This lapse is not limited to mathematics. Although ancient India is one of the great civilisations that shaped the early millennia of history, its contribution has disappeared from our collective memory. Last year, with his book The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World, Mr Dalrymple began to restore its place in history. Now, his book tour across Britain and an almost concurrent British Museum exhibition, 'Ancient India: living traditions', promise to build on that foundation.

From about 3300BC, the Indus Valley became home to a thriving civilisation that traded extensively with both ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. 'Ramesses II has Indian peppercorns up his nose in his mummification and there are Indian trading colonies in Mesopotamia from a very early date.' However, continues Mr Dalrymple, it's from about 250BC and the rule of Ashoka—who emerges from the ashes of the break up of Alexander the Great's empire—that ancient India truly begins to export its culture and alter the trajectories of the countries around it. 'Ashoka expands to take over most of Afghanistan, as well as northern India, converts to Buddhism and begins to send out what he calls Dharma ministers—missionaries—out as far as Libya, ancient Cyrene. This is the beginning of a process that goes on for the next 1,400 years, of Indian stories, languages, religions, art, ideas of medicine and mathematics diffusing outwards.'