used by different Nations* 329 



notation. Of the pythmenes, fifteen in number, hardly two 

 figures are found among those we know. (The aspirated t 

 of the Sanscrit alphabetical letters is used for 3 and d for 

 12.) They are likewise quite different from the Indian (Ara- 

 bic) figures. It deserves to be noticed*, that the figure of 1, 

 with a cypher added to it, signifies four, as that figure doubled 

 (two vertical lines), with a cypher added to them, signifies 

 eight. They form, as it were, resting-places, intermediate 

 landings, of the sedecimal system for ~ and J ". But, f of w 

 (12), is not indicated by a cypher, but by a peculiar hieroglyph, 

 similar to the Arabic four. To express the principal funda- 

 mental group itself (16), and the multipla of it (2 n, 3 w . , . .), 

 the known Bengali figures are used ; so that the Bengali 1, pre- 

 ceded by a curved line, signifies 16 ; the Bengali 2 is used for 

 82 ; the 3 for 48. The multipla of n are consequently indicated 

 only as groups of first, second, third, .... order. The numbers 

 2 n + 4, or 3 n + 6, (that is 36 and 54 in the sedecimal sys- 

 tem,) are expressed by the Bengali figure of 2, and the added 

 Mahabharatan figure of 4, or by the Bengali figure of 3, and 

 the added Mahabharatan figure of 6 *. 



It is, indeed, a very regular, but at the same time a very in- 

 convenient and complicated mode of counting, the origin of 

 which is the more difficult to guess, as it presupposes the 

 knowledge of the Bengali figures. 

 '■-•.--, 



F * I use here the expression Mahabharatan figure only for the purpose of indi- 

 cating, with a proper word, the numerical system discovered in the manuscript of 

 that poem. 



