The Hindu-Arabic Numerals | Page 7

Aryan, and appearing in ancient
Gandh[=a]ra, now eastern Afghanistan and northern Punjab. The
alphabet of the language is found in inscriptions dating from the fourth
century B.C. to the third century A.D., and from the fact that the words
are written from right to left it is assumed to be of Semitic origin. No
numerals, however, have been found in the earliest of these inscriptions,
number-names probably having been written out in words as was the
custom with many ancient peoples. Not until the time of the powerful
King A['s]oka, in the third century B.C., do numerals appear in any
inscriptions thus far discovered; and then only in the primitive form of
marks, quite as they would be found in Egypt, Greece, Rome, or in {20}
various other parts of the world. These A['s]oka[69] inscriptions, some
thirty in all, are found in widely separated parts of India, often on
columns, and are in the various vernaculars that were familiar to the
people. Two are in the Kharo[s.][t.]h[=i] characters, and the rest in

some form of Br[=a]hm[=i]. In the Kharo[s.][t.]h[=i] inscriptions only
four numerals have been found, and these are merely vertical marks for
one, two, four, and five, thus:
| || ||| ||||
In the so-called ['S]aka inscriptions, possibly of the first century B.C.,
more numerals are found, and in more highly developed form, the
right-to-left system appearing, together with evidences of three
different scales of counting,--four, ten, and twenty. The numerals of
this period are as follows:
[Illustration]
There are several noteworthy points to be observed in studying this
system. In the first place, it is probably not as early as that shown in the
N[=a]n[=a] Gh[=a]t forms hereafter given, although the inscriptions
themselves at N[=a]n[=a] Gh[=a]t are later than those of the A['s]oka
period. The {21} four is to this system what the X was to the Roman,
probably a canceling of three marks as a workman does to-day for five,
or a laying of one stick across three others. The ten has never been
satisfactorily explained. It is similar to the A of the Kharo[s.][t.]h[=i]
alphabet, but we have no knowledge as to why it was chosen. The
twenty is evidently a ligature of two tens, and this in turn suggested a
kind of radix, so that ninety was probably written in a way reminding
one of the quatre-vingt-dix of the French. The hundred is unexplained,
although it resembles the letter ta or tra of the Br[=a]hm[=i] alphabet
with 1 before (to the right of) it. The two hundred is only a variant of
the symbol for hundred, with two vertical marks.[70]
This system has many points of similarity with the Nabatean
numerals[71] in use in the first centuries of the Christian era. The cross
is here used for four, and the Kharo[s.][t.]h[=i] form is employed for
twenty. In addition to this there is a trace of an analogous use of a scale
of twenty. While the symbol for 100 is quite different, the method of
forming the other hundreds is the same. The correspondence seems to
be too marked to be wholly accidental.

It is not in the Kharo[s.][t.]h[=i] numerals, therefore, that we can hope
to find the origin of those used by us, and we turn to the second of the
Indian types, the Br[=a]hm[=i] characters. The alphabet attributed to
Brahm[=a] is the oldest of the several known in India, and was used
from the earliest historic times. There are various theories of its origin,
{22} none of which has as yet any wide acceptance,[72] although the
problem offers hope of solution in due time. The numerals are not as
old as the alphabet, or at least they have not as yet been found in
inscriptions earlier than those in which the edicts of A['s]oka appear,
some of these having been incised in Br[=a]hm[=i] as well as
Kharo[s.][t.]h[=i]. As already stated, the older writers probably wrote
the numbers in words, as seems to have been the case in the earliest
Pali writings of Ceylon.[73]
The following numerals are, as far as known, the only ones to appear in
the A['s]oka edicts:[74]
[Illustration]
These fragments from the third century B.C., crude and unsatisfactory
as they are, are the undoubted early forms from which our present
system developed. They next appear in the second century B.C. in
some inscriptions in the cave on the top of the N[=a]n[=a] Gh[=a]t hill,
about seventy-five miles from Poona in central India. These
inscriptions may be memorials of the early Andhra dynasty of southern
India, but their chief interest lies in the numerals which they contain.
The cave was made as a resting-place for travelers ascending the hill,
which lies on the road from Kaly[=a]na to Junar. It seems to have been
cut out by a descendant {23} of King ['S][=a]tav[=a]hana,[75] for
inside