The Hindu-Arabic Numerals | Page 9

numerals, but a vertical arrangement for four.[101] Now where
did China get these forms? Surely not from India, for she had them, as
her monuments and literature[102] show, long before the Hindus knew
them. The tradition is that China brought her civilization around the
north of Tibet, from Mongolia, the primitive habitat being
Mesopotamia, or possibly the oases of Turkestan. Now what numerals
did Mesopotamia use? The Babylonian system, simple in its general
principles but very complicated in many of its details, is now well
known.[103] In particular, one, two, and three were represented by
vertical arrow-heads. Why, then, did the Chinese write {29} theirs
horizontally? The problem now takes a new interest when we find that
these Babylonian forms were not the primitive ones of this region, but
that the early Sumerian forms were horizontal.[104]
What interpretation shall be given to these facts? Shall we say that it
was mere accident that one people wrote "one" vertically and that
another wrote it horizontally? This may be the case; but it may also be

the case that the tribal migrations that ended in the Mongol invasion of
China started from the Euphrates while yet the Sumerian civilization
was prominent, or from some common source in Turkestan, and that
they carried to the East the primitive numerals of their ancient home,
the first three, these being all that the people as a whole knew or needed.
It is equally possible that these three horizontal forms represent
primitive stick-laying, the most natural position of a stick placed in
front of a calculator being the horizontal one. When, however, the
cuneiform writing developed more fully, the vertical form may have
been proved the easier to make, so that by the time the migrations to
the West began these were in use, and from them came the upright
forms of Egypt, Greece, Rome, and other Mediterranean lands, and
those of A['s]oka's time in India. After A['s]oka, and perhaps among the
merchants of earlier centuries, the horizontal forms may have come
down into India from China, thus giving those of the N[=a]n[=a]
Gh[=a]t cave and of later inscriptions. This is in the realm of
speculation, but it is not improbable that further epigraphical studies
may confirm the hypothesis.
{30}
As to the numerals above three there have been very many conjectures.
The figure one of the Demotic looks like the one of the Sanskrit, the
two (reversed) like that of the Arabic, the four has some resemblance to
that in the Nasik caves, the five (reversed) to that on the K[s.]atrapa
coins, the nine to that of the Ku[s.]ana inscriptions, and other points of
similarity have been imagined. Some have traced resemblance between
the Hieratic five and seven and those of the Indian inscriptions. There
have not, therefore, been wanting those who asserted an Egyptian
origin for these numerals.[105] There has already been mentioned the
fact that the Kharo[s.][t.]h[=i] numerals were formerly known as
Bactrian, Indo-Bactrian, and Aryan. Cunningham[106] was the first to
suggest that these numerals were derived from the alphabet of the
Bactrian civilization of Eastern Persia, perhaps a thousand years before
our era, and in this he was supported by the scholarly work of Sir E.
Clive Bayley,[107] who in turn was followed by Canon Taylor.[108]
The resemblance has not proved convincing, however, and Bayley's

drawings {31} have been criticized as being affected by his theory. The
following is part of the hypothesis:[109]
Numeral Hindu Bactrian Sanskrit 4 [Symbol] [Symbol] = ch chatur,
Lat. quattuor 5 [Symbol] [Symbol] = p pancha, Gk. [Greek:p/ente] 6
[Symbol] [Symbol] = s [s.]a[s.] 7 [Symbol] [Symbol] = [s.] sapta ( the s
and [s.] are interchanged as occasionally in N. W. India)
Bühler[110] rejects this hypothesis, stating that in four cases (four, six,
seven, and ten) the facts are absolutely against it.
While the relation to ancient Bactrian forms has been generally doubted,
it is agreed that most of the numerals resemble Br[=a]hm[=i] letters,
and we would naturally expect them to be initials.[111] But, knowing
the ancient pronunciation of most of the number names,[112] we find
this not to be the case. We next fall back upon the hypothesis {32} that
they represent the order of letters[113] in the ancient alphabet. From
what we know of this order, however, there seems also no basis for this
assumption. We have, therefore, to confess that we are not certain that
the numerals were alphabetic at all, and if they were alphabetic we have
no evidence at present as to the basis of selection. The later forms may
possibly have been alphabetical expressions of certain syllables called
ak[s.]aras, which possessed in Sanskrit fixed numerical values,[114]
but this is equally uncertain with the rest. Bayley also thought[115] that
some of the forms were Phoenician, as notably the use of a circle for