The system was developed in India by the Hindus around 400 BC, found its way to Persia, and was relayed to Europe by Arabs. Hence, they became known in the West as "Arabic numerals". The glyphs underwent some modifications en route from India to Europe.
http://www.bestandworst.com/r/93885.htm
Indians actually invented the numeral system we call Arabic--1 through 9 and the zero." There is a discussion of negative numbers and the Indian mathematician, Aryabhata, who computed the value of pi. On page 65, the sub-heading "Medicine" is a far too short but has an intriguing description of plastic surgery, inoculations, and "the sterilization of wounds, a procedure unknown to the West until modern times."
http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/s_es/s_es_rosse_school2.htm
# India invented the Number System. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta. The place value system, the decimal system was developed in India in 100 BC.
# The World's first university was established in Takshila in 700 BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.
# The art of Navigation was born in the river Sindh 6000 years ago. The very word Navigation is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH. The word navy is also derived from Sanskrit 'Nou'.
# Bhaskaracharya calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart. Time taken by earth to orbit the sun: (5th century) 365.258756484 days.
# The value of "pi" was first calculated by Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem. He discovered this in the 6th century long before the European mathematicians.
# Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from India. Quadratic equations were propounded by Sridharacharya in the 11th century. The largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Hindus used numbers as big as 10*53(10 to the power of 53) with specific names as early as 5000 BC during the Vedic period. Even today, the largest used number is Tera: 10*12(10 to the power of 12).
http://www.spiritualjourneys.net/about_ancient_india.htm
In the various forms of numerals used in ancient India,
and in later European and Oriental forms, the zero is
represented by a small circle or by a dot:
Names of Zero
Hindu sunya, meaning "void" or "empty"
Arabic sifr, meaning "vacant"
Roman cifra
Latin zephirum or zephyrum
changes: zeuro, zepiro, cifre
English zero and cipher
Other Forms: naught, tziphra, sipos, tsiphron, rota,
circulus, galgal, theca, null, and figura nihili
Since the earliest form of the Hindu symbol was
commonly used in inscriptions and manuscripts in order
to mark a blank, it was called sunya, meaning "void" or
"empty." This word passed over into the Arabic as sifr,
meaning "vacant." This was transliterated in about 1200
into Latin with the sound but not the sense being kept,
resulting in zephirum or zephyrum. Various progressive
changes of these forms, including zeuero, zepiro, zero,
cifra, and cifre, led to the development of our words
"zero" and "cipher." The double meaning of the word
"cipher" today - referring either to the zero symbol or
to any of the digits - was not in the original Hindu.
In early English and American schools the term
"ciphering" referred to doing sums or other
computations in arithmetic.
One might think that once a place-value number system
came into existence then the 0 as an empty place
indicator is a necessary idea, yet the Babylonians had
a place-value number system without this feature for
over 1000 years. Moreover there is absolutely no
evidence that the Babylonians felt that there was any
problem with the ambiguity which existed. Remarkably,
original texts survive from the era of Babylonian
mathematics. The Babylonians wrote on tablets of
unbaked clay, using cuneiform writing. The symbols were
pressed into soft clay tablets with the slanted edge of
a stylus and so had a wedge-shaped appearance (and
hence the name cuneiform). Many tablets from around
1700 BC survive and we can read the original texts. Of
course their notation for numbers was quite different
from ours (and not based on 10 but on 60) but to
translate into our notation they would not distinguish
between 2106 and 216 (the context would have to show
which was intended). It was not until around 400 BC
that the Babylonians put two wedge symbols into the
place where we would put zero to indicate which was
meant, 216 or 21 '' 6. According to a Babylonian legend
the original shape of the zero was said to be derived
from Buddha. When he was meditating he formed a
circular shape with his index fingers and thumbs
meaning void. By doing this he was saying that in
prayer you should make your mind blank. This void was
the same idea as the blank space between numbers. So in
order to be able to define the number of blanks they
used the symbol in the shape of a 0.
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Zero.html
The first notions of zero as a number and its uses have
been found in ancient Mathematical treatise from India
and thus India is correctly related to the immensely
important mathematical discovery of the numeral zero.
This concept, combined with the place-value system of
enumeration, became the basis for a classical era
renaissance in Indian mathematics. Indians began using
zero both as a number in the place-value system of
numerals as well as to denote an empty place (place
holder).
Earliest known precise celestial calculations: As
argued by James Q. Jacobs, Aryabhata, an Indian
Mathematician (c. 500AD) accurately calculated
celestial constants like earth's rotation per solar
orbit, days per solar orbit, days per lunar orbit. In
fact, to the best of my knowledge, no source from prior
to the 18th century had more accurate results on the
values of these constants! Click here for details.
Aryabhata's 499 AD computation of pi as 3.1416 (real
value 3.1415926...) and the length of a solar year as
365.358 days were also extremely accurate by the
standards of the next thousand years.
Binary System of number representation: A Mathematician
named Pingala (c. 100 B.C.) developed a system of binary
enumeration convertible to decimal numerals. He
described the system in his book called
Chandahshaastra. The system he described is quite
similar to that of Leibnitz, who was born in the 17th
century.
Invention of various modern mathematical series leading
to the discovery of calculus: In the southern state of
Kerala, mathematician Madhava discovered the
mathematical series for sin x, cos x, and arctan x
circa 1400AD. Colin Maclaurin re-discovered the series
in the 1700s. Jyesthadeva wrote a commentary called
Yukti-Bhasa in Malayalam, the regional language of
Kerala, around 1550.
The word "Algorithm" was derived from a method
described by Al-Khwarizmi, an eminent 9th century Arab
scholar. He played important roles in importing
knowledge on arithematic and algebra from India to the
Arabs. In his work, De numero indorum (Concerning the
Hindu Art of Reckoning), it was based on an Arabic
translation of Brahmagupta where he gave a full account
of the Hindu numerals which was the first to expound
the system with its digits 0,1,2,3,...,9 and decimal
place value which was a fairly recent arrival from
India. Computer programming heavily uses Algorithm.
http://www.cerc.utexas.edu/~jay/anc.html#zero