Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c6.17

c6.17

³ It must be remarked that these words all mean ‘*blank*’, ‘*vacancy*’ or ‘*sky*’, and that there is nothing to show that there was a distinct *mark* or *figure* for the cipher; thus this Indian notation by words exactly corresponds with the system of the *abacus*. Woepcke wrongly translates two of these words (çūnya and kha) by ‘*le point*’ (p. 103), and there is therefore nothing in these astronomical treatises to show that the figure cipher was used in India even in the sixth century A. D. The Indian *abacus* was by using heaps of cowries for the numbers, the number of these shells being equal to that of the number to be expressed, the cipher being a blank space. Thus ∴| |∴=303; ∴|∴=33. Warren “Kala Sankalita”, p. 334) mentions a counter as used to express the cipher, but I have never found this to be done.