History of Hindu Mathematics: A Source Book v1.c7.s8.23

v1.c7.s8.23

**Their Supposed Unreliability.** The above list contains more than thirty undoubted epigraphic instances of the use of the place-value notation in India. G.R. Kaye,¹ who believes in the theory of the non-Hindu origin of the place-value notation, states that all the early epigraphic evidences of its use in India are unreliable. On the basis of the existence of a few forged grant names or descriptions substituted. All such forgeries are easily detected, because of the uneven surface of the part of the plate that is tampered with and the difference in the writing. (2) An entirely new document may be forged. Such cases, though rare, are also easily detected, because there is obvious divergence as to the date recorded in the document, and that inferred on the basis of the forms of the characters used in the writing. Such forgeries are also marked by an obvious inferiority in execution, and inaccuracies in the statement of genealogies and other historical facts.