History of Hindu Mathematics: A Source Book v1.c7.s8.4

v1.c7.s8.4

**Forms.** A large number of scripts differing from each other are in use in different parts of India today. The forms of the numerical signs in these scripts are also different. Although all the Hindu scripts are derived from a common source—the Brâhmî Script—yet the differences in the forms of the various modern Indian scripts are so great that it would have been difficult to establish any relation between them, if their previous history had not been known. The above remark applies to the numerical signs also, as will appear from a study of the numerical signs in the various vernaculars of India given in Table XV. The great divergence in the forms of the numerical symbols shows that in India, people already knew the use of the zero and the place-value principle before the different scripts came into being, and that the numeral forms were independently modified in various parts of India, just as the letters of the alphabet were modified. And as the changes in the forms in different localities were independent of each other, so there has come about a great divergence in the modern forms. That this divergence already existed in the eleventh century is testified to by Al-Bîrûnî who says, "As in different parts of India, the letters have different shapes the numerical signs, too, which are called *aṅka*, differ."²