The Hindu-Arabic Numerals c7.21

c7.21

As already stated, however, the Hindu system as thus far described was no improvement upon many others of the ancients, such as those used by the Greeks and the Hebrews. Having no zero, it was impracticable to designate the tens, hundreds, and other units of higher order by the same symbols used for the units from one to nine. In other words, there was no possibility of place value without some further improvement. So the Nānā Ghāt symbols required the writing of “thousand seven twenty-four” about like T 7, tw, 4 in modern symbols, instead of 7024, in which the seven of the thousands, the two of the tens (concealed in the word twenty, being originally “twain of tens,” the *-ty* signifying ten), and the four of the units are given as spoken and the order of the unit (tens, hundreds, etc.) is given by the place. To complete the system only the zero was needed; but it was probably eight centuries after the Nānā Ghāt inscriptions were cut, before this important symbol appeared; and not until a considerably later period did it become well known. Who it was to whom the invention is due, or where he lived, or even in what century, will probably always remain a mystery.¹ It is possible that one of the forms of ancient abacus suggested to some Hindu astronomer or mathematician the use of a symbol to stand for the vacant line when the counters were removed. It is well established that in different parts of India the names of the higher powers took different forms, even the order being interchanged.² Nevertheless, as the significance of the name of the unit was given by the order in reading, these variations did not lead to error. Indeed the variation itself may have necessitated the introduction of a word to signify a vacant place or lacking unit, with the ultimate introduction of a zero symbol for this word.