296 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. (June, 1908. 
a tray covered with sand, Bayley:concluded that the pata was an 
abacus. In this he was altogether wrong for, as is = known, 
the pati was, and is, sp a board for writing u 
Bayley goes a step further and attempts to cae that the 
Greek abacus was possibly ora bas India. ‘“ Perhaps,” = 
says, “in the Greek form of the e of this instrument so 
trace exists of the use of ‘ sksharas” sage os would fies 
ley’s argument, the phonetic ‘aksharas,’ in the sense used by him, 
never existed exc ept in the imagination ae some rather rash 
orientalists. Bayley’s most learned article the Geneulogy of 
Modern Numerals largely deals with the use e the abacus; and 
unless it can be shown that this instrament was in common in 
ancient India, all his eloquent reasoning is worthless 
There is an interesting oo rather important auestion depen- 
dent upon the supposed use of the abacus 1 in ancient is 
question relates to the origin rat the ‘ zero’ and of the fens cipher. 
Taylor, Woepcke, Bayley, Burnell and others derive the Sanskrit 
numerical words that si zero from the use of the abacus. 
These terms, th ey say, indicate the space not filled up by a counter, 
the ‘place vide’ of the ‘tableau 4 colonnes.’ All these terms 
indicate wc pap or the sky, ether, etc., and may Aeieagemets enough 
be su 2 tec ha nnected with the abacus. As a corollar ry to 
this re the cipher is derived from Siinya titoaeh the 
on: Sia Sanco ” wrote Taylor in 1816, “the word shinya 
saititia a circle, cipher, or vacuity ; and the Arabs, on receiving 
the numerical n nm from India, translated it by the word 
at has been said 
all with the ‘ place vide’ of the ‘ tableaux a colonnes,’ need not be 
repeated, though of course, this evidence affords in itself a strong 
argument in favour of the Indian origin of the sign—an argument 

a co name,” writes Gow, “ seems to point to the common semitic 
word a meaning Bled and it is said that . Son stre ss hore: ,on 
which ines m ight be drawn with a stick, was, still is, a 
ealoulstion % in ane Kast [Shore History #5) Greek iathematies, p. >. 29, 
rm sénya does not occar with this technical ning in any 
inition 
The 
a inscriptions before the 11th century A.D. at the 
Dr. Murray’s New English eects has “ cipher fr, Arab, re, 
gifr, te erly oe ebro zero’or ‘nought’ a subst. use of the adj. 
gifr, 
oid’ f. gafara, ‘to be me The ine was simply a trans- 
Atco the Sant skrit finya, literally * empty.’ 


alae Zee! iia HR Saar ils - J ee ssdetiieteatene eke sae 



