Nothing to See Here: India’s Oldest Use of Zero Found

The front page of the folio dates to A.D. 224-383.

Credit: Copyright Bodleian Libraries/University of Oxford

The study from Oxford used radiocarbon dating, a method for measuring the content of carbon isotopes in organic material to determine its age (an isotope is a variation of an element that has a different number of neutrons in its nucleus). The results produced a further complication: The Bakhshali manuscript might not be a single text but several texts.

The carbon dating resulted in three different dates for different parts of the manuscript. The oldest part dated to A.D. 224-383, but two other parts dated to A.D. 680-779 and A.D. 885-993.

"It is possible that the Bakhshali manuscript is made up of more than one text," one of the researchers, Camillo Formigatti, a Sanskrit librarian at the Bodleian Libraries, wrote in statement from Oxford. "More research is needed to better understand what the manuscript consists of."