Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c6.3

c6.3

THE history of the numerals used in India is of the last importance, as on it, partly, depends the solution of a very important question—the origin of the European decimal systems of notation by which the value of the numbers depends on position and which also involves the use of the cipher. The facts furnished by the S. Indian inscriptions unfortunately are of little more value than to throw doubts on the speculative conclusions arrived at by Woepcke originally[^1), but which are now commonly asserted in popular manuals[^2). These are: that the early Indian numeral signs and ciphers are derived from the initial letters of the words denoting the same; that these numeral figures were brought to Europe by two distinct courses—firstly, about the early centuries of our era by Neo-Pythagoreans through the intercourse between Alexandria and India; and secondly, by the Arabs, who adopted them about the ninth century[^3). The last proposition is the only one of the three which rests on any historical evidence; the rest are inferences drawn by Woepcke with some probability, and have been so far accepted by the most eminent Indianists[^4). Whether the inscriptions that have been discovered