Indian Antiquary Vol 40

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 56

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[FEBRUARY, 1911.
many of the numerals, one cannot but be led to suppose that the initial letters of the written names were many of them adopted as their numerical symbols." This hypothesis was based upon very unsound observation ; but it has persisted, in some form or other, until quite recently, e.g., the same idea is suggested in Cantor's Vorlesungen über Geschichte der Mathematik (1907), [Vol. I., p. 604.]
Prinsep (1838) was followed by Stevenson (1858) who corrected two or three of the former's mistakes, but retained some, and introduced a number of others; but Thomas (1848) had already given sounder views. Prinsep's second mistake was modified somewhat by Bhagvanlal Indraji, who, in 1877, propounded the theory that the Nagari numerals are aksharas or syllables. This theory received the commendation of Bühler, but no satisfactory explanation of the connection between the numerals and the aksharas could be given either by the originator of the theory or by his learned supporter. Bhagvanlal tried to fit in Aryabhata's alphabetical notation and other systems, but without success; and Bühler confessed that he could not produce the key to this mystery." Of course the key to the mystery is that the theory is altogether wrong, but Bühler seemed confiden of its accuracy and even went so far as to make a remarkable deduction from it. "I would only point out," he writes, " that the occurrence of the Anunäsika, &c. . . .among these figures indicates that they were invented by Brahmans, not by Vanius, nor by Buddhists who used Prakrit, &c. "
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Professor Kern pointed out1o that the theory did not explain the old symbols for one, two and three, which consist of corresponding numbers of horizontal strokes, and Burnell showed (a) that the resemblance of the old symbols to the aksharas was in many cases quite fanciful; (6) that with the old symbols for the hundreds, the theory fails altogether; (e) that no explanation of the principle in which the syllables were selected could be given; and (d) that the resemblance to the syllables in question can be said to begin only with the later forms of the numerical symbols.
Finally, when Bühler retracted bis former opinion and agreed with Barnell, the akshara theory collapsed.
In 1882 Sir E. Clive-Bayley attacked the question again12 from one ci Prinsep's points of view. He stated that the numbers four to nine were borrowed from the Bactrian alphabet and "that the proof of the borrowing consists solely in the almost absolute identity of the numerals with the older lapidary Bactrian forms of certain letters." "It will be seen," he continues, "that the 4 = the Bactrian letter chh, the 5 = p, the 6 g, the 7 a, the 8 b, and the 9 h."
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Canon Taylor13 in the same year proponnded the same theory, with a difference, and M. Halévy also asserted that the Brähmi numeral signs 4-9. were the initial Kharōsthi letters for the corresponding numerals.14
A detailed re-examination of such theories would be a waste of time, and it must now suffice to say that they have all been disproved. Indeed, we might go so far as to say that all attempts to trace numerical symbols to an alphabetical origin have failed; and this leads us to consider whether it is not possible that numerical symbols were generally evolved (of course to a limited degree) before alphabetical symbols. The elemental strokes used for small numbers in Kharōsthi, Brahmi, Roman, Greek (Herodian), Babylonian, &c., &c., scripts support this view; and the necessity for some rough notation before the necessity of an alphabet is fairly obvious.
IL
Before proceeding to the detailed consideration of the Brahmi symbols, it is desirable that some mention should be made of the Kharōsthi script, which, however, as far as India itself is concerned, was confined to the north-west portion and even there did not persist to any very late date.
• Prinsep's Essays, Vol. II, p. 80.
Ibid., II, 12. See also Woepoke's Mémoire sur la propagation des chiffres indiens (1863). Above, Vol. VI, p. 42.
He afterwards gave up the theory (Indian Paleography, p. 82), but retained the deduction. Above, Vol. VI, p. 49,
11 Elements of South Indian Paleography, p. 65.
13 The Genealogy of Modern Numerals, J. R. A. 8., Vol. XIV, p. 3.
13 The Alphabet, Vol. II., p. 236.
10 Above, Vol. VI, 149.
14 Bühler Indian Studies, Vol. III., p. 52.