the language
is found in inscriptions dating from the fourth century B.C. to the third
century A.D., and from the fact that the words are written from right to
left it is assumed to be of Semitic origin. No numerals, however, have been
found in the earliest of these inscriptions, number-names probably having
been written out in words as was the custom with many ancient peoples. Not
until the time of the powerful King A['s]oka, in the third century B.C., do
numerals appear in any inscriptions thus far discovered; and then only in
the primitive form of marks, quite as they would be found in Egypt, Greece,
Rome, or in {20} various other parts of the world. These A['s]oka[69]
inscriptions, some thirty in all, are found in widely separated parts of
India, often on columns, and are in the various vernaculars that were
familiar to the people. Two are in the Kharo[s.][t.]h[=i] characters, and
the rest in some form of Br[=a]hm[=i]. In the Kharo[s.][t.]h[=i]
inscriptions only four numerals have been found, and these are merely
vertical marks for one, two, four, and five, thus:

| || ||| ||||

In the so-called ['S]aka inscriptions, possibly of the first century B.C.,
more numerals are found, and in more highly developed form, the
right-to-left system appearing, together with evidences of three different
scales of counting,--four, ten, and twenty. The numerals of this period are
as follows:

[Illustration]

There are several noteworthy points to be observed in studying this system.
In the first place, it is probably not as early as that shown in the
N[=a]n[=a] Gh[=a]t forms hereafter given, although the inscriptions
themselves at N[=a]n[=a] Gh[=a]t are later than those of the A['s]oka
period. The {21} four is to this system what the X was to the Roman,
probably a canceling of three marks as a workman does to-day for five, or a
laying of one stick across three others. The ten has never been
satisfactorily explained. It is similar to the A of the Kharo[s.][t.]h[=i]
alphabet, but we have no knowledge as to why it was chosen. The twenty is
evidently a ligature of two tens, and this in turn suggested a kind of
radix, so that ninety was probably written in a way reminding one of the
quatre-vingt-dix of the French. The hundred is unexplained, although it
resembles the letter _ta_ or _tra_ of the Br[=a]hm[=i] alphabet with 1
before (to the right of) it. The two hundred is only a variant of the
symbol for hundred, with tw