o vertical marks.[70]

This system has many points of similarity with the Nabatean numerals[71] in
use in the first centuries of the Christian era. The cross is here used for
four, and the Kharo[s.][t.]h[=i] form is employed for twenty. In addition
to this there is a trace of an analogous use of a scale of twenty. While
the symbol for 100 is quite different, the method of forming the other
hundreds is the same. The correspondence seems to be too marked to be
wholly accidental.

It is not in the Kharo[s.][t.]h[=i] numerals, therefore, that we can hope
to find the origin of those used by us, and we turn to the second of the
Indian types, the Br[=a]hm[=i] characters. The alphabet attributed to
Brahm[=a] is the oldest of the several known in India, and was used from
the earliest historic times. There are various theories of its origin, {22}
none of which has as yet any wide acceptance,[72] although the problem
offers hope of solution in due time. The numerals are not as old as the
alphabet, or at least they have not as yet been found in inscriptions
earlier than those in which the edicts of A['s]oka appear, some of these
having been incised in Br[=a]hm[=i] as well as Kharo[s.][t.]h[=i]. As
already stated, the older writers probably wrote the numbers in words, as
seems to have been the case in the earliest Pali writings of Ceylon.[73]

The following numerals are, as far as known, the only ones to appear in the
A['s]oka edicts:[74]

[Illustration]

These fragments from the third century B.C., crude and unsatisfactory as
they are, are the undoubted early forms from which our present system
developed. They next appear in the second century B.C. in some inscriptions
in the cave on the top of the N[=a]n[=a] Gh[=a]t hill, about seventy-five
miles from Poona in central India. These inscriptions may be memorials of
the early Andhra dynasty of southern India, but their chief interest lies
in the numerals which they contain.

The cave was made as a resting-place for travelers ascending the hill,
which lies on the road from Kaly[=a]na to Junar. It seems to have been cut
out by a descendant {23} of King ['S][=a]tav[=a]hana,[75] for inside the
wall opposite the entrance are representations of the members of his
family, much defaced, but with the names still legible. It would seem that
the excavation was made by order of a king named Vedisiri, and "the
inscription contains a list of gifts made on the occasion of the
performance of s