While several ancient cultures used a placeholder to indicate 'nothing,' the Indian mathematician Brahmagupta and his predecessors were the first to treat zero as a number in its own right with its own mathematical properties. In the Bakshali Manuscript and later the 'Brahmasphutasiddhanta,' zero (shunya) was defined as a number that, when added to or subtracted from another number, leaves it unchanged. This was a revolutionary concept that allowed for the development of the decimal system and modern algebra. This Indian system of 'Hindu-Arabic' numerals was eventually adopted by the Islamic world and later by Europe, replacing the cumbersome Roman numeral system and enabling the Scientific Revolution.