The Hindu-Arabic Numerals c6.104

c6.104

There is, however, considerable ground for interesting speculation with respect to these first three numerals. The earliest Hindu forms were perpendicular. In the Nānā Ghāt inscriptions they are vertical. But long before either the Aśoka or the Nānā Ghāt inscriptions the Chinese were using the horizontal forms for the first three numerals, but a vertical arrangement for four.¹ Now where did China get these forms? Surely not from India, for she had them, as her monuments and literature² show, long before the Hindus knew them. The tradition is that China brought her civilization around the north of Tibet, from Mongolia, the primitive habitat being Mesopotamia, or possibly the oases of Turkestan. Now what numerals did Mesopotamia use? The Babylonian system, simple in its general principles but very complicated in many of its details, is now well known.³ In particular, one, two, and three were represented by vertical arrow-heads. Why, then, did the Chinese write theirs horizontally? The problem now takes a new interest when we find that these Babylonian forms were not the primitive ones of this region, but that the early Sumerian forms were horizontal.¹