The Hindu-Arabic Numerals c9.68

c9.68

Even in very remote times, before the Hindu numerals were sculptured in the cave of Nānā Ghāt, there were trade relations between Arabia and India. Indeed, long before the Aryans went to India the great Turanian race had spread its civilization from the Mediterranean to the Indus.¹ At a much later period the Arabs were the intermediaries between Egypt and Syria on the west, and the farther Orient.² In the sixth century B.C., Hecatæus,³ the father of geography, was acquainted not only with the Mediterranean lands but with the countries as far as the Indus,⁴ and in Biblical times there were regular triennial voyages to India. Indeed, the story of Joseph bears witness to the caravan trade from India, across Arabia, and on to the banks of the Nile. About the same time as Hecatæus, Scylax, a Persian admiral under Darius, from Caryanda on the coast of Asia Minor, traveled to northwest India and wrote upon his ventures.¹ He induced the nations along the Indus to acknowledge the Persian supremacy, and such number systems as there were in these lands would naturally have been known to a man of his attainments.