Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c9.s1.9

c9.s1.9

The few numeral signs in the Aśoka edicts of Shāhbāzgarhī and Mansehra (plate I, col. XIII)⁵ show that in the 3rd century B. C. the Kharoṣṭhī system of numeral notation differed from the later one at least in one important point. Both in Shāhbāzgarhī, where the signs for 1, 2, 4, 5 occur, and in Mansehra, which offers 1, 2, 5, the inclined cross for 4 is absent, and 4 is expressed by four parallel vertical strokes, and 5 by five. It is as yet not ascertainable, how the other signs looked in the 3rd century B. C.