nyam
.
In Indian mathematics, the sign for ‘nought’ or zero. Its decimal potential, in combination with integers, enabled the Hindu imagination to create vast numbers—simply by adding to 1, 2, etc., an indefinite series of zeros. Equally, the emptiness of zero opened up the conceptualization of
Brahman
without attributes (
nirgu
a
), and pointed towards
nyat
in Buddhism. Among
B
uls
, the
guru
is sometimes called
nya.