Brahmi numerals
Topic: Studying Indian History: Sources, Dating and Historiography · NCERT: Class 7, Ch 6 "The Age of Reorganisation"
Meaning
Brahmi numerals are the number signs used in early Indian inscriptions written in the Brahmi script. They had separate signs for 1 to 9 and for 10, 20, 100 and so on. They did not use place value or a zero. Over many centuries these signs changed shape and became the digits of the Indian place-value system. Arabs passed that system to Europe, where it was called "Hindu-Arabic numerals". This is why the numbers we write today can be traced back to India.
Example
The Naneghat inscription in Maharashtra (c. 1st century BCE) was set up by the Satavahana queen Naganika. It lists gifts and amounts using Brahmi number signs. Some of these signs already look like modern digits.
Don't confuse with
- Hindu-Arabic place-value system: this system uses only ten digits and a zero, and a digit's position gives its value. Early Brahmi numerals had no zero and needed a new sign for each ten and each hundred.
Related concepts
- Inscription
- Epigraphy
- Prakrit
- Palaeography
- Votive inscriptions
- Aihole inscription
- Copper plate inscriptions
- Asiatic Society of Bengal
- James Prinsep
- Brahmi script