Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c9.s2.t2.1

c9.s2.t2.1

For the decimal notation, now occasionally called *aṅkapallī*, the Hindus used originally the *aṅkas* or the units of the ancient system, together with the cipher or naught,³ which originally consisted of the *śūnyabindu*, the dot (marking a blank, see below, § 35, E), called by abbreviated names *śūnya* and *bindu* (see BW.). Very likely this system is an invention of the Hindu mathematicians and astronomers, made with the help of the Abacus (BURNELL, BAYLEY). If HOERNLE'S very probable estimate of the antiquity of the arithmetical treatise, contained in the Bakhshālī MS., is correct,⁴ its invention dates from the beginning of our era or even earlier. For, in that work the decimal notation is used throughout. At all events, it was known to Varāhamihira (6th century A. D.), who employs the word *aṅka*, "the decimal figures," in order to express the numeral 9 (Pañcasiddhāntikā, 18, 33; compare below, § 35, A). Its most important element, the cipher or naught, is mentioned in Subandhu's Vāsavadattā, which Bāṇa (about A. D. 620) praises as a famous book. Subandhu compares the stars with "ciphers (*śūnyabindavaḥ*) which the Creator, while calculating (the value of) the universe, on account of the absolute worthlessness of the Saṁsāra marked with his chalk, the crescent of the moon, all over the firmament which the darkness made similar to a skin blackened with ink."⁵ The cipher, known to Subandhu, of course consisted of a dot, like that of the Bakshālī MS. (plate IX, B, col. IX.).