488 Jmnmal of the Asiatic Society of BengaL [July, 1907. 



of 'the value of position, and contends that the value of position 

 and the invention of the zero, which are so obviously dex'ived from 

 the use of the abacus, are both of Indian origin. That the abacus 

 played a very iinportant part in the development of our notation 

 no one will deny^ but for Bayley's argument it must be shown that 

 the abacus was in the use in India in early times. Now, as 



far as can be made out, the only evidence of tl»e use of the abacus in 

 India is contained in the introduction of Taylor's LiJawatz, Rodet 

 states that in ' Arabic and Persian manuscripts one often 



comes 



across 



a.jColonnes.' On the other 'hand we find that *' in no existing^ 

 Sanskrit MS. is there any evidence of the use of the 'tableaux a 

 colohnes/ " . i > . . . . _ . 



\ It is possible that the foundation of Taylor's statement is the 

 custom of writing in the sand in India. Albiruni says : "They do 

 not use them (the Kashmir symbols) when reckoning in the sand," 

 but this TN-riting in the sand has no connection with the abacus - 

 The custom of making calculations in the sand still holds in India 

 and Burma. '* The Burman," says Sir R. Temple (Ind. Antiq. xx., 

 54, '* writes either on the gi^ound in the dust, or on hl^ck parabatk . . » 

 In either case each calculation is erased when no longer required 

 . - . They invariably rub out the results of each step as they pro* 

 ceed 'V; and, in a note to this remark, Mr. S. B. Dikshit writes r 

 "Hindu astrologers use a wooden plank, which they cover with 

 dust. This plank is called pati^ hence arithmetic is called pafi^ 

 ganita by Bhaskaracharya and others." We are told (Story of 

 Arithmetic, p. 14) that the simplest form of the abacus consisted 

 merely of a board with parallel grooves, or a tray containing sand, 

 which could be readily grooved with the fingers." Hence the 

 supposed connection. The Hindus simply use the sand for writ- 

 ing pui-poses and there is not the slighest evidence that they have 

 ever effected their calculations by anything of the nature of an 

 abacus. There has been a good deal of confusion between the 

 terms ' abacus,' ' gobar ' (powder), and * writing in the dust.' 



Bayley also states that Xryabhata describes a mode of numera- 

 tion based on the value of position and also that he made use of 

 the same in extracting the square root. The former point has 

 been disposed of above, while the latter will be dealt with in 



another place, 

 cally that 

 'gnized 



affirm 



^y 



he knew anything about it. 



Among those points of evidence that have led to the belief in 

 the Indian origin of modem notation, is the fact that the word 

 ' Indian ' has been attached to the system by some writers* . In 

 particular, we constantly hear that the tradition of an Indian origin 

 existed among the Arabs. "Mais malheureusement," as Woepcke 



vereal apparently from time immemorial." Has tbis statement any real 

 foundation ? I have made caref al enqairiea and have come across no evidence 

 of the common use of the abacus in India. 



