The Lokavibhāga is a Jain cosmological text originally composed in Prakrit by a Digambara monk, Sarvanandi,[1] surviving in a later Sanskrit translation by one Siṃhasūri.[2] It the oldest known Indian source to use zero as number.[3] Surviving manuscripts of the Lokavibhāga are listed in v.26 of the New Catalogus Catalogorum.[4] Parts of the Bakhshali Manuscript on arithmetic, which does use a physically written symbol for zero, have been carbon-dated, but the results of this dating are puzzling and are still being debated.[5]
The printed edition of the Lokavibhāga states that the original Prakrit work was composed by Sarvanandin at Patalika in the Banarastra on a certain day the astronomical details of which are given. These correspond to 458 CE. The surviving text is a Sanskrit translation of Sarvanandin's work by one Simhasūri, made "some considerable time" after that date of Sarvanandin.[6]
^Ifrah, Georges (2000). The Universal History of Numbers: From Prehistory to the Invention of the Computer. Wiley. p. 416. ISBN0-471-39340-1.
^Dash, Siniruddha (2013). New catalogus catalogorum: an alphabetical register of Sanskrit and allied works and authors Vol. 26 Vol. 26. Madras: Univ. of Madras. OCLC931470378.
