Indian Epigraphy c15.t1.15

c15.t1.15

There was also a convention according to which ordinary words of the Sanskrit language, that can be associated with particualr numbers, were used to indicate those numbers. Thus words meaning 'the hand' (i.e. *kara*, etc.) came to be used to imply 2 since man has only two hands. Such words indicating numbers were arranged according to the principle of *vāma-gati*, i.e. 'the turning round of the sum', i.e. reading the figures from right to left.³ This system of expressing numbers is often noticed in the dates of inscriptions especially of the medieval age.⁴ Another system of expressing numbers by particular letters of the alphabet is known since 499 A.D. when Āryabhaṭa composed his *Āryabhaṭīya*. Although Āryabhaṭa's system is not noticed in inscriptions, a similar system called Kaṭapayādi, which developed in South India, is sometimes found in South Indian epigraphs of the medieval period. According to this system, the 10 letters from *ka* to *ña* and from *ṭa* to *na* have the values respectively of the numbers 1 to 9 and 0, while the 5 letters from *pa* to *ma* indicate the numbers 1 to 5 and the values of the numbers 1 to 9 are assigned respectively to the letters *ya* and *ḷa*. In the formation of chronograms, vowels, without numerical value, are added to the consonants and the last consonants in the conjuncts used have alone numerical values, while the principle of *vāma-gati* is also observed. Thus the Kandiyur inscription¹ of Kodavarman is dated in the 1,511,564th day of the Kali-yuga era expressed by the Kaṭapayādi chronogram *viṣamampuṇyamekam* in which *va*=4, *ṣa*=6, *ma*=5, *pa*=1, *ya*=1, *ma*=5 and *ka*=1 and they are to be read from right to left. Similar other known systems, such as the Nannādi developed in Kerala, do not appear in inscriptions.