JOURNAL 



OF THE 



ASIATIC SOCIETY 



No. VII.— 1856. 



Ancient Indian Numerals. — By Edward Thomas, Esq. B. G. S. 



I have reserved for independent examination, the letters or figures 

 inscribed on the obverse field of the Peacock coins. The readers of the 

 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal may call to mind, that Jas. 

 Prinsep, in the number for April 1838, first introduced a notice on 

 " the Sanscrit Numerals," which, up to that period, he had succeeded 

 in discovering on coins, Inscriptions, &c. 



His prefatory remarks are so apposite and so essential to a due 

 understanding of the subject as it then stood, that I need make no 

 apology for reproducing them in this place. " The most ancient 

 mode of denoting number in the Sanscrit languages, as in the Greek 

 and Latin, was by the use of letters iu alphabetical order. This 

 system we find prevalent in all ancient Sanskrit works as well as in 

 the Pali, the Tibetan and other derivate systems. There do not 

 appear to be any numerals peculiar to the Pali. In their sacred 

 records, the words are always written at length ; they have also the 

 symbolical words of the Sanskrit astronomical works, and what is 

 called the Varna-sankhyd or numerical classification of the alphabet. 

 The numerals now employed in Ceylon, Ava, Cambodia, Siam, have 

 hardly the slightest affinity to one another." 



u When this system was exchanged for that of the decimal or 

 cipher notation does not appear to be known, or to have been 



No. LXXVIII— New Semes. Vol. XXV. 4 d 



