The Hindu-Arabic Numerals c6.109

c6.109

What interpretation shall be given to these facts? Shall we say that it was mere accident that one people wrote "one" vertically and that another wrote it horizontally? This may be the case; but it may also be the case that the tribal migrations that ended in the Mongol invasion of China started from the Euphrates while yet the Sumerian civilization was prominent, or from some common source in Turkestan, and that they carried to the East the primitive numerals of their ancient home, the first three, these being all that the people as a whole knew or needed. It is equally possible that these three horizontal forms represent primitive stick-laying, the most natural position of a stick placed in front of a calculator being the horizontal one. When, however, the cuneiform writing developed more fully, the vertical form may have been proved the easier to make, so that by the time the migrations to the West began these were in use, and from them came the upright forms of Egypt, Greece, Rome, and other Mediterranean lands, and those of Aśoka's time in India. After Aśoka, and perhaps among the merchants of earlier centuries, the horizontal forms may have come down into India from China, thus giving those of the Nānā Ghāt cave and of later inscriptions. This is in the realm of speculation, but it is not improbable that further epigraphical studies may confirm the hypothesis.